bar
/bɑɹ/noun, verb, preposition, adverb
bar is spelled B-A-R: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 87 times per million words in written English, the 1,223rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data, counting Bar, the name). People search “bar vs barr” about 40 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, bar means “A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of bar is bars.
How many letters and syllables are in bar?
| Letters | 3: B-A-R |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 |
| In writing | 87 times per million words; the 1,223rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is bar?
Bar appears 87 times per million words in written English, the 1,223rd most frequent word form in the list. The list counts every capitalisation together, so this includes Bar, the name.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce bar?
- UK /bɑː/
- US /bɑɹ/
- US [bɑɹ]
Bar has one syllable.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-baa.ogg, En-us-bar.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with bar
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: baa (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: barr.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with bar?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as bar from its last stressed vowel (/ɑɹ/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: bra, arb.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of bar
- bars plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- barring participle, present
- barred participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does bar mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 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
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.
- 3
A cuboid piece of any solid commodity.
bar of chocolate
- 4
A broad shaft, band, or stripe.
a bar of light
- 5
A long, narrow drawn or printed rectangle, cuboid or cylinder, especially as used in a bar code or a bar chart.
- 6
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.
- 7
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.
- 8
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).
- 9
A non-SI unit of pressure equal to 100,000 pascals, slightly less than atmospheric pressure at sea level.
- 10
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.
- 11
USarchaicA bear.
verb
- 1
To obstruct the passage of (someone or something).
Our way was barred by a huge rockfall.
- 2
To prohibit.
I couldn't get into the nightclub because I had been barred.
- 3
To lock or bolt with a bar.
to bar the door
- 4
To imprint or paint with bars, to stripe.
preposition
- 1
Except, other than, besides.
He invited everyone to his wedding bar his ex-wife.
adverb
- 1
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.
noun
- 1
Initialism of Browning automatic rifle.
adjective
- 1
slangAcronym of bright, alert, responsive.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Bar in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | barre , bar, pub, taverne , comptoir , bloquer |
| German | Block, Barren, Stange , blockieren, versperren , Stück |
| Portuguese | barra , bar, taberna , balcão , barrar , proibir |
| Spanish | barra, tortor , barrear , tableta, pastilla (de jabón) , embarrar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does bar come from?
From Middle English barre, from Old French barre (“beam, bar, gate, barrier”), from Vulgar Latin *barra, of uncertain origin. Doublet of barre.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).