Pronunciations (5)
-
/bɑː/
Pronunciation notes
- Received-Pronunciation
-
/bɑɹ/
Pronunciation notes
- General-American
-
[bɑɹ]
Pronunciation notes
- General-American
-
[bɑ˞]
Pronunciation notes
- General-American
-
/bäː/
Pronunciation notes
- Australia
Noun
A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
The window was protected by steel bars.
A solid metal object with uniform (round, square, hexagonal, octagonal or rectangular) cross-section; in the US its smallest dimension is ¹⁄₄ inch or greater, a piece of thinner material being called a strip.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
Ancient Sparta used iron bars instead of handy coins in more valuable alloy, to physically discourage the use of money.
We are expecting a carload of bar tomorrow.
A cuboid piece of any solid commodity.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
bar of chocolate
bar of soap
A broad shaft, band, or stripe.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
a bar of light
a bar of colour
A long, narrow drawn or printed rectangle, cuboid or cylinder, especially as used in a bar code or a bar chart.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
Any of various lines used as punctuation or diacritics, such as the pipe ⟨|⟩, fraction bar (as in 12), and strikethrough (as in Ⱥ), formerly (obsolete) including oblique marks such as the slash.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
The sign indicating that the characteristic of a logarithm is negative, conventionally placed above the digit(s) to show that it applies to the characteristic only and not to the mantissa.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
A similar sign indicating that the charge on a particle is the negative of its usual value (and that consequently the particle is in fact an antiparticle).
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
A business selling alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises, or the premises themselves; a public house.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Synonyms
- Examples
-
The street was lined with all-night bars.
The counter of such premises.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Narrower terms
- Examples
-
Step up to the bar and order a drink.
A counter, or simply a cabinet, from which alcoholic drinks are served in a private house or a hotel room.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
Premises or a counter serving any type of beverage.
Usage- broadly
- Countable
- In compounds
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
a coffee bar
a juice bar
An informal establishment selling food to be consumed on the premises.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
a burger bar
a local fish bar
An establishment offering cosmetic services.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
a nail bar
a brow bar
An official order or pronouncement that prohibits some activity.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Synonyms
- Examples
-
The club has lifted its bar on women members.
More examples (1)
The Chief Medical Officer of London Transport believes that public opinion against smoking will harden to the point of a total bar on the Underground, as in other countries.
Anything that obstructs, hinders, or prevents; an obstruction; a barrier.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
Muſt I new bars to my own joy create?
Sexual preference or orientation shall not be a bar to becoming a foster parent.
More examples (1)
Mr Harding could look back on his initial judgement of Paul's talent with great satisfaction while Paul could reflect that to be Irish was not necessarily a bar to progress.
A dividing line (physical or notional) in the chamber of a legislature beyond which only members and officials may pass.
Usage- UK usage
- Countable
- Uncountable
The railing surrounding the part of a courtroom in which the judges, lawyers, defendants and witnesses stay.
Usage- UK usage
- Countable
- Uncountable
The bar exam, the legal licensing exam.
Usage- Philippines
- US usage
- Countable
- Uncountable
- usually
- with the
- Examples
-
He's studying hard to pass the Bar this time; he's failed it twice before.
Collectively, lawyers or the legal profession; specifically applied to barristers in some countries, but including all lawyers in others.
Usage- Countable
- metonymically
- Uncountable
- Examples
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He was called to the bar.
One of an array of bar-shaped symbols that display the level of something, such as wireless signal strength or battery life remaining.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
I don't have any bars in the middle of this desert.
A vertical line across a musical staff dividing written music into sections, typically of equal durational value.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Synonyms
One of those musical sections. Hip-hop lyrics, especially ones written and delivered skillfully.
Usage- Countable
- in-plural
- Slang
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
That rapper there, yeah, he got bars.
One of those musical sections. Something well-said or well-written.
Usage- broadly
- Countable
- in-plural
- Slang
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
His musical journey, and this is a quote, is “a constant push and pull between self awareness and delusion”. That’s bars right there to be honest.
A horizontal pole that must be crossed in the high jump and pole vault.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
Any level of achievement regarded as a challenge to be overcome; a standard or expectation.
Usage- Countable
- Figurative
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
to set the bar high/low
to raise the bar
More examples (1)
[…] there’s no World War III now, but in the words of the prominent Never Trumper and Atlantic contributor Eliot Cohen, “that’s a pretty low bar.”
The crossbar.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
Composed play then saw Sam Ricketts nutmeg Ashley Cole before Taylor whipped a fine curling effort over Petr Cech's bar.
The central divider between the inner and outer table of a backgammon board, where stones are placed if they are hit.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
An addition to a military medal, on account of a subsequent act.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance; especially
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance; especially: A linear shoaling landform feature within a body of water; a formation extending across the mouth of a river or harbor or off a beach, and which may obstruct navigation. (FM 55-501).
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Synonyms
- Examples
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More examples (1)
Travellers change at Batoum into a steamer which performs the service between that port and Poti, and which has a less draught of water to enable it to cross the bar of the river Rion.
One of the ordinaries in heraldry; a diminutive of a fess.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
On the fesse are two bars wavy azure for waterways.
A city gate, in some British place names.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
Temple Bar, London
A drilling or tamping rod.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
A vein or dike crossing a lode.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
A gatehouse of a castle or fortified town.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
The part of the crust of a horse's hoof which is bent inwards towards the frog at the heel on each side, and extends into the centre of the sole.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
The space between the tusks and grinders in the upper jaw of a horse, in which the bit is placed.
Usage- Countable
- in-plural
- Uncountable
A measure of drugs, typically one ounce.
Usage- Countable
- Slang
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
Tell Sick Boy tae gie us a bell if ye see um. The bastard owes us twenty fuckin bar.
A small, tablet-shaped dose of Xanax, typically containing two milligrams and able to be split into quarters.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
Verb
To obstruct the passage of (someone or something).
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
-
Our way was barred by a huge rockfall.
More examples (1)
'One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night, / But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light; / Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day, / Then look for me by moonlight, / Watch for me by moonlight, / I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way.'
To prohibit.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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I couldn't get into the nightclub because I had been barred.
To lock or bolt with a bar.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
-
to bar the door
To imprint or paint with bars, to stripe.
- Examples
-
More examples (1)
I lived in a hut in the yard. To be out of the chaos I would sometimes get into the accountant’s office. It was built of horizontal planks, and so badly put together that, as he bent over his high desk, he was barred from neck to heels with narrow strips of sunlight.
Preposition
Except, other than, besides.
- Examples
-
He invited everyone to his wedding bar his ex-wife.
More examples (2)
"I might be a fool," the younger man admitted quietly, "even an idiot, but there's not a person living, bar you, who possess the courage to call me a weakling, Sir."
These see the overhead wires installed on all bar the slow lines between Bedford and Wellingborough by next May, with the remaining section completed by August, when the full programme is due to be completed.
Adverb
Denotes the minimum odds offered on other horses not mentioned by name.
Usage- not-comparable
- Examples
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Leg At Each Corner is at 3/1, Lost My Shirt 5/1, and it's 10/1 bar.
Noun
A non-SI unit of pressure equal to 100,000 pascals, slightly less than atmospheric pressure at sea level.
- Related words
Noun
A metasyntactic variable representing an unspecified entity, often the second in a series, following foo.
Usage- Uncountable
- Examples
-
Suppose we have four objects, foo, bar, baz and quux.
Noun
A bear.
Usage- US usage
- Archaic
- dialectal
- Examples
-
More examples (1)
‘You see,’ continued he, ‘my wife wanted a new bar-skin petticoat, and Sal, that gal of our’n, kept pesterin me ’bout some bar’s ile to slick her har with, (as the fellers didn’t like to see her mommock her head with taller,) so as how I couldn’t rest. Well, one Sunday morning, I took ‘Brown Betsy,’ my old two shooter, and all the dogs, and off I sot for the cane brake in the hollow, over back of Ike Hamberlin’s, the steam doctor’ — for I know’d Ike would be tarnation riley if I kilt a bar any where close to his clearin, and that made me sorter ambitious like.
Noun
a room or establishment where alcoholic drinks are served over a counter
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
he drowned his sorrows in whiskey at the bar
a counter where you can obtain food or drink
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
he bought a hot dog and a coke at the bar
a rigid piece of metal or wood; usually used as a fastening or obstruction or weapon
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
there were bars in the windows to prevent escape
musical notation for a repeating pattern of musical beats
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
the orchestra omitted the last twelve bars of the song
an obstruction (usually metal) placed at the top of a goal
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
it was an excellent kick but the ball hit the bar
the act of preventing
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
there was no bar against leaving
money was allocated to study the cause and prevention of influenza
(meteorology) a unit of pressure equal to a million dynes per square centimeter
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
unfortunately some writers have used bar for one dyne per square centimeter
a submerged (or partly submerged) ridge in a river or along a shore
- Examples
-
the boat ran aground on a submerged bar in the river
the body of individuals qualified to practice law in a particular jurisdiction
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
he was admitted to the bar in New Jersey
a narrow marking of a different color or texture from the background
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
a green toad with small black stripes or bars
may the Stars and Stripes forever wave
a block of solid substance (such as soap or wax)
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
a bar of chocolate
a horizontal rod that serves as a support for gymnasts as they perform exercises
- Broader terms
a heating element in an electric fire
- Broader terms
- Examples
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an electric fire with three bars
(law) a railing that encloses the part of the courtroom where the judges and lawyers sit and the case is tried
- Examples
-
spectators were not allowed past the bar
Verb
prevent from entering; keep out
- Examples
-
He was barred from membership in the club
render unsuitable for passage
- Examples
-
block the way
barricade the streets
More examples (1)
stop the busy road
expel, as if by official decree
- Examples
-
he was banished from his own country
secure with, or as if with, bars
- Antonyms
- Examples
-
He barred the door