bar

See also: Bar and Appendix:Variations of "bar"

㍴	U+3374, ㍴ SQUARE BAR

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Translingual

Etymology

Abbreviation of English Bavarian, German Bairisch, or Bavarian Boarisch.

Symbol

bar

(international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Bavarian.

English

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɑː/
- Audio (UK): (file)
(General American) IPA^(key): /bɑɹ/, [bɑɹ], [bɑ˞]
- Audio (US): (file)
(Australia) IPA^(key): /bäː/
Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)
Hyphenation: bar
Homophones: baa, bah (in some pronunciations)

Etymology 1

Etymology tree

Vulgar Latin *barra

Old French barrebor.

Middle English barre

English bar

From Middle English barre, from Old French barre (“beam, bar, gate, barrier”), from Vulgar Latin *barra, of uncertain origin. Doublet of barre.

Noun

bar (countable and uncountable, plural bars)

A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length.
The window was protected by steel bars.
(countable, uncountable, metallurgy) 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.
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.
bar of chocolate

bar of soap
A broad shaft, band, or stripe.
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.
(typography) 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.
Hyponyms: pipe, strikethrough, macron
(mathematics) 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.
(physics) 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).
A business selling alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises, or the premises themselves; a public house.
Synonyms: barroom, ginshop, (British) pub, public house, tavern; see also Thesaurus:pub

The street was lined with all-night bars.
The counter of such premises.
Hyponym: wet bar

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.
(by extension, in combination) Premises or a counter serving any type of beverage.
a coffee bar

a juice bar
An informal establishment selling food to be consumed on the premises.
a burger bar

a local fish bar
An establishment offering cosmetic services.
a nail bar

a brow bar
An official order or pronouncement that prohibits some activity.
Synonyms: ban, prohibition

The club has lifted its bar on women members.
- 1959 May, “Accommodation for Non-Smokers”, in Railway Magazine, pages 295-296:
  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.
- 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1676, →OCLC, Act V, page 83:
  Muſt I new bars to my own joy create?
- 1987 February 1, Nancy A. Coleman, “Foster Care: Case By Case Basis”, in Gay Community News, volume 14, number 28, page 5:
  Sexual preference or orientation shall not be a bar to becoming a foster parent.
- 2013, Terence Dillon, A Long Way Home, page 184:
  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.
(UK, Parliament) A dividing line (physical or notional) in the chamber of a legislature beyond which only members and officials may pass.
(UK, law) The railing surrounding the part of a courtroom in which the judges, lawyers, defendants and witnesses stay.
(US, Philippines, law, usually with the) The bar exam, the legal licensing exam.
He's studying hard to pass the Bar this time; he's failed it twice before.
(law, metonymic, "the Bar", "the bar") Collectively, lawyers or the legal profession; specifically applied to barristers in some countries, but including all lawyers in others.
He was called to the bar. ― He became a barrister.
(telecommunications, electronics) One of an array of bar-shaped symbols that display the level of something, such as wireless signal strength or battery life remaining.
I don't have any bars in the middle of this desert.
(music) A vertical line across a musical staff dividing written music into sections, typically of equal durational value.
Synonym: measure
(music) One of those musical sections.
1. (slang, hip-hop, chiefly in the plural) Hip-hop lyrics, especially ones written and delivered skillfully.
  That rapper there, yeah, he got bars.
2. (by extension, slang, chiefly in the plural) Something well-said or well-written.
  Coordinate terms: cinema, that's a bar
  - 2025 June 13, “Matt Miggz: Drums, Delusion, and Staying True”, in WAVS BLOG‎^[2]:
    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.
(sports) A horizontal pole that must be crossed in the high jump and pole vault.
(figurative) Any level of achievement regarded as a challenge to be overcome; a standard or expectation.
to set the bar high/low

to raise the bar
- 2020 March 10, Kathy Gilsinan, quoting Eliot Cohen, “Confessions of an Ex–Never Trumper”, in The Atlantic‎^[3]:
  […] 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.”
(soccer, most codes) The crossbar.
- 2010 December 29, Chris Whyatt, “Chelsea 1 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC‎^[4], archived from the original on 4 February 2026:
  Composed play then saw Sam Ricketts nutmeg Ashley Cole before Taylor whipped a fine curling effort over Petr Cech's bar.
(backgammon) The central divider between the inner and outer table of a backgammon board, where stones are placed if they are hit.
An addition to a military medal, on account of a subsequent act.
(geography, nautical, hydrology) A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance; especially:
2. 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).
  Synonym: bank
  
  Hyponym: sandbar
  - 1868, “Route 20: London to Tiflis […] ”, in Handbook for Travellers in Russia, Poland, and Finland, 2nd edition, London: John Murray, page 320:
    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.
(heraldry) One of the ordinaries in heraldry; a diminutive of a fess.
- 1957 February, “B.T.C. Armorial Bearings”, in Railway Magazine, page 81:
  On the fesse are two bars wavy azure for waterways.
Coordinate terms: barrulet, closet
A city gate, in some British place names.
Temple Bar, London
(mining) A drilling or tamping rod.
(mining) A vein or dike crossing a lode.
(architecture) A gatehouse of a castle or fortified town.
(farriery) 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.
(farriery, in the plural) The space between the tusks and grinders in the upper jaw of a horse, in which the bit is placed.
(slang) A measure of drugs, typically one ounce.
- 1994 [1993], Irvine Welsh, “The First Shag in Ages”, in Trainspotting, London: Minerva, →ISBN, page 151:
  Tell Sick Boy tae gie us a bell if ye see um. The bastard owes us twenty fuckin bar.
(recreational drugs) A small, tablet-shaped dose of Xanax, typically containing two milligrams and able to be split into quarters.

Derived terms

terms derived from the noun "bar"

Descendants

→ Albanian: bar m
→ Arabic: بَار m (bār)
→ Armenian: բար (bar)
→ Bulgarian: бар (bar)
→ Burmese: ဘား (bha:)
→ Chichewa: bála
→ Cantonese: 吧 (baa¹)
→ Czech: bar m
→ Danish: bar c
→ Dutch: bar m
→ Esperanto: baro
→ Estonian: baar
→ French: bar m
- → Romanian: bar
→ Galician: bar m
→ Georgian: ბარი (bari)
→ German: Bar f
→ Greek: μπαρ n (bar)
→ Gulf Arabic: بار (bār)
→ Hebrew: בָּר (bar), בָּאר (bár)
→ Hungarian: bár (also via German)
→ Icelandic: bar m
→ Irish: beár m
→ Italian: bar m
→ Japanese: バー (bā)
→ Khmer: បារ (baa)
→ Korean: 바 (ba)
→ Lithuanian: bãras m
→ Macedonian: бар m (bar)
→ Malagasy: ba
→ Mandarin: 吧 (bā)
→ Norwegian:
Bokmål: bar m

Nynorsk: bar m
→ Persian: بار (bâr)
→ Polish: bar m
→ Portuguese: bar m
→ Russian: бар m (bar)
→ Serbo-Croatian: ба̑р m, bȃr m
→ Slovene: bȃr m
→ Spanish: bar m
→ Swahili: baa
→ Swedish: bar c (see there for further descendants)
→ Thai: บาร์ (baa)
→ Turkish: bar
→ Xhosa: íbhári
→ Zulu: ibha

Translations

See bar/translations § Etymology 1.

References

The Manual of Heraldry, Fifth Edition, by Anonymous, London, 1862, online at [5]

Etymology 2

From Middle English barren, from Old French barrer,^[1] from Medieval Latin barrare (“to bar”), from the noun. Cognate to Occitan barrar, Spanish barrar, Portuguese barrar.

Preposition properly imperative of the verb. Compare barring.

Verb

bar (third-person singular simple present bars, present participle barring, simple past and past participle barred)

(transitive) To obstruct the passage of (someone or something).
Our way was barred by a huge rockfall.
- 1906 August, Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, in Poems, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 1, stanza V, page 47:
  '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.'
(transitive) To prohibit.
I couldn't get into the nightclub because I had been barred.
(transitive) To lock or bolt with a bar.
to bar the door
To imprint or paint with bars, to stripe.
- 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 208, column 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.

Synonyms

(obstruct): block, hinder, obstruct
(prohibit): ban, interdict, prohibit, foreclose (formal)
(lock or bolt with a bar):
See also Thesaurus:hinder

Derived terms

Descendants

→ Esperanto: bari

Translations

See bar/translations § Verb.

Preposition

bar

Except, other than, besides.
Synonyms: apart from, barring, except for, excepting, excluding, other than, save; see also Thesaurus:except

He invited everyone to his wedding bar his ex-wife.
- 1936, F.J. Thwaites, chapter I, in The Redemption, Sydney: H. John Edwards, page 5:
  "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."
- 2019 October, Philip Sherratt, “Midland Main Line upgrade presses on”, in Modern Railways, page 62:
  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.

Derived terms

Translations

with the exception of — see except

Adverb

bar (not comparable)

(horse racing) Denotes the minimum odds offered on other horses not mentioned by name.
Leg At Each Corner is at 3/1, Lost My Shirt 5/1, and it's 10/1 bar.

References

^ “barren, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2018, retrieved 31 October 2019.

William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, editors (1914), “bar”, in The Century Dictionary […], volumes I (A–C), New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 446.

Etymology 3

Borrowed from Ancient Greek βάρος (báros, “weight”), as a variant of earlier barye and barad. First attested as sense 2 by suggestion of Theodore William Richards in 1903, while sense 1 was proposed by Vilhelm Bjerknes, who first published about it in 1906 as German Bar, see there for more.

English Wikipedia has an article on:

bar (unit)

Wikipedia

Noun

bar (plural bars)

A non-SI unit of pressure equal to 100,000 pascals, i.e. a megadyne per square centimetre. [from 1905]
- 1905 April, Vagn Walfrid Ekman, On the use of insulated water-bottles and reversing thermometers (Publications de circonstance; 23), Copenhagen: Andr. Fred. Høst & fils, page 6:
  […] where $V_{0}$ is the volume of sea-water at atmospheric pressure, and $- δ V$ the decrease of volume cased by an increase of pressure $p$ measured in 100 Bars. [footnote:] The unit Bar = 1 megadyne per cm² has lately been proposed by Prof. V. Bjerknes, who has pointed out the great advantage of this unit over the "atmosphere", to which it is aproximately equal.
(obsolete) A dyne per square centimetre, i.e. a microbar in the modern sense. [1903–1900s]
Synonyms: barye, barad
- 1903 December, Theodore William Richards, Wilfred Newsome Stull, New Method for Determining Compressibility, Washington: Carnegie Institution, page 42f.:
  It is a matter of great regret that the scientific world has not agreed upon a less arbitrary unit of pressure than the "atmosphere." The difficulty is now increased by the frequent technical use of this word to designate the pressure of a kilogram per square centimeter. The growing tendency toward the adoption of the c.g.s. system suggests the use of a consistent unit for this dimension also. Might not the pressure of a dyne per square centimeter be suitably called a bar? (Greek βαρος, pressure, weight.)
- 1909 July, Arthur Edwin Kennelly, C. A. Wright, J. S. van Bylevelt, “The convection of heat from small copper wires”, in Proceedings of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, volume 28, number 7, page 706:
  In Column II of the foregoing table, the air-pressure in the tank is recorded in megabars. The c.g.s. unit of pressure, 1 dyne per sq. cm. has been called the "bar"; so that the megabar is 10⁶ dynes per sq. cm.

Synonyms

㍴

Derived terms

Related terms

isobar

Descendants

→ Chinese: 巴 (bā)
→ Finnish: baari
→ Galician: bar m
→ Greek: μπαρ n (bar)
→ Hebrew: בָּר (bar)
→ Icelandic: bar n
→ Irish: bar m
→ Korean: 바 (ba)
→ Spanish: bar m

Translations

See bar/translations § Etymology 3.

Etymology 4

From foobar, a phonetic respelling of FUBAR.

Noun

bar (uncountable)

(programming) A metasyntactic variable representing an unspecified entity, often the second in a series, following foo.
Suppose we have four objects, foo, bar, baz and quux.

Etymology 5

Variant of bear.

Noun

bar (plural bars)

(US, archaic, dialect) A bear.
- 1849 November 10, The Spirit of the Times, New York, page 542, column 3:
  ‘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.

Anagrams

Rab, Bra, ABR, bra, arb, Arb., ARB, abr., RBA

Afar

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈbʌɾ/
Hyphenation: bar

Noun

bár m (plural baritté f)

night
age

Declension

Declension of bár

absolutive

bár

predicative

bára

subjective

barí

genitive

bartí

Postpositioned forms
l-case	báral
k-case	bárak
t-case	bárat
h-case	bárah

Derived terms

References

E. M. Parker; R. J. Hayward (1985), “bar”, in An Afar-English-French dictionary (with Grammatical Notes in English), University of London, →ISBN
Mohamed Hassan Kamil (2015), L’afar: description grammaticale d’une langue couchitique (Djibouti, Erythrée et Ethiopie)‎^[6], Paris: Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (doctoral thesis)