Other forms: bars, barred, barring, baring, bared
A bar is the place you go for a drink in the evening: bottles lined up on the back wall, stools along the counter, someone pulling a pint. It is also the counter itself, which is why you order at the bar and carry the glasses back to the table.
Everywhere else, a bar is a straight, solid length of something. Iron bars across a window, a crowbar, a bar of chocolate, a bar of soap, a gold bar in a vault. As a verb, to bar is to block or to shut out: the road was barred, he was barred from every pub in town. In music a bar is one small group of beats between two upright lines on the page. In law, the Bar is the body of barristers, and a young lawyer is called to the Bar. Behind bars means in prison.
1nounbarA place where alcoholic drinks are served, or the counter they are served from.~27%
“We met in a small bar behind the station and stayed until closing.”
2nounlongA long, straight, rigid piece of metal or wood.~18%
“The window had iron bars across it and no glass at all.”
3nounsolidA solid block of something, sold in that shape.~9%
“He lived on coffee and a bar of chocolate a day.”
4verbofficiallyTo block a way, or to officially forbid someone from doing something.~2%
“She was barred from driving for eighteen months.”
5nounmusicIn music, a small group of beats marked off by vertical lines.~9%
“Everyone comes in on the third bar.”
6nounprofessionThe profession of barristers, or lawyers taken as a body.~35%
“He was called to the Bar at twenty-four.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 14 sentences found in the wild and placed 11 of them on a sense (3 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
bar is a place where drinks are served.
Also accepted in games: pub
Bar arrived through Middle English barre from Old French barre, which meant beam, bar, gate, barrier, and before that Vulgar Latin barra, whose own parents are unknown. The beam laid across a doorway is the oldest picture in the word, and the barrier idea runs through all of it, from the barred window to the counter that stands between a customer and the bottles.
Middle English
barre
English, today
bar
From Middle English barre. From Middle English barre, from Old French barre (“beam, bar, gate, barrier”), from Vulgar Latin barra, of uncertain origin. a doublet of barre.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA