Bar or barr?
bar is a noun meaning “A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform…”; barr is a verb meaning “To make the sound of an elephant”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) bar is about 30 times as common as barr.
What is the difference between bar and barr?
| bar | barr | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb, preposition, adverb, prefix, adjective | verb |
| Meaning | A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length 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… To obstruct the passage of (someone or something) | |
| Example | The window was protected by steel bars | none recorded |
| Forms | bars | barrs, barring, barred |
| Pronunciation | /bɑː/ /bɑɹ/ [bɑɹ] | not recorded |
| In writing | 87 times per million words | 2.9 times per million words |
Sources: bar and barr in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of bar and barr
bar
- 1
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
- 2
To obstruct the passage of (someone or something)
Our way was barred by a huge rockfall
- 3
Except, other than, besides
He invited everyone to his wedding bar his ex-wife
- 4
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
- 5
A non-SI unit of pressure equal to 100,000 pascals, slightly less than atmospheric pressure at sea level
- 6
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
- 7
Alternative form of bary-
- 8
Abbreviation of baritone horn
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, bar or barr?
bar appears 87 times per million words; barr 2.9 times per million words.
bar 87 times per million wordsbarr 2.9 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search bar vs barr?
“bar vs barr” is searched about 40 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“barr vs bar”, “bar or barr”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.