Bar

How to spell bar

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bar

What does bar mean?

1. nounA long, rigid piece of solid material, or a similarly shaped block.
2. nounA place or counter where alcoholic drinks are served.
3. verbTo block, obstruct, or prevent access.
4. nounThe legal profession, or the qualification to practise as a lawyer.
5. nounA unit of musical time containing a fixed number of beats; a measure.

Bar in a sentence

• noun

  The builders welded a steel bar across the gate.

• noun

  They met for a drink at a quiet bar near the station.

• verb

  Security guards can bar anyone without a ticket from entering.

• noun

  After years of study she was finally called to the bar.

• noun

  The pianist repeated the opening bar until it was perfect.

• noun

  She snapped a bar of chocolate in half for the children.

Where does bar come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the Old French barre, meaning a rod, gate, or barrier, which English borrowed in the late 1100s and 1200s. That French word descended from a Vulgar Latin form barra, whose ultimate origin is not certain; many scholars suspect a Gaulish or other Celtic source, since the word appears widely across the Romance languages without a clear classical Latin ancestor. The earliest English sense was the simple physical one of a straight rigid piece of wood or metal used to fasten or obstruct, and from that idea of blocking came both the verb 'to bar' and the legal 'bar', the railing in a courtroom that separated the public from the judges and counsel. The drinking-house sense grew later from the counter or barrier over which drinks were served. Because the spelling is so short and phonetic, the word has stayed remarkably stable, and its many modern meanings all trace back to that original notion of a length of solid material.

How the word is built

• bar (single root, from Old French barre meaning a rod or barrier; no prefix or suffix)

Words that sound like bar

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• barre: The horizontal handrail that dancers hold for support during warm-up and technique exercises.