Barring

How to spell barring

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce barring

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does barring mean?

1. prepositionExcept for; unless something stated should happen.
2. verbPresent participle of bar: blocking, obstructing, or shutting out.

Barring in a sentence

• preposition

  Barring any last-minute delays, the train will reach the city by noon.

• verb

  A fallen tree is barring the only road into the village.

• preposition

  Every member voted in favour, barring two who were absent.

• verb

  Security staff are barring anyone without a valid pass from the building.

Where does barring come from?

Language of origin: French

This word grows out of the noun and verb 'bar', which entered English in the early 1200s from Old French 'barre', meaning a rod, rail, or pole set up as an obstruction. The Old French in turn came from Medieval Latin 'barra', a barrier or crossbar, whose deeper origin is genuinely uncertain and may lie in a pre-Latin word for a stout stick. From the literal sense of placing a physical bar across a way came the verb meaning 'to block or shut out', and from the present participle 'barring' arose the prepositional use meaning 'leaving out' or 'except for', as if to say 'that obstacle being set aside'. The doubling of the r follows the regular English rule that a short stressed vowel before a single final consonant doubles that consonant before -ing, which is exactly the trap, since dropping one r produces 'baring' (meaning uncovering), a quite different word. The same 'bar' root still sits inside 'barrier', 'barricade', and 'embargo'.

How the word is built

• bar (root: to block or obstruct)
• -ring (present participle ending, with the final r doubled)