Other forms: barres
A barre is the rail dancers hold while warming up. Fixed to the wall at hip height, and the first half of every ballet class happens at it.
Barre work builds the strength and turnout that everything else depends on, and only afterwards do dancers move to the centre. The word is French and is pronounced the same as bar, which is what it is. Fitness classes have borrowed the name entirely, and a barre class is a ballet-influenced exercise session that may involve no ballet at all.
1nounbarreA horizontal rail used by dancers for support during exercises.
“The class spent forty minutes at the barre.”
French
barre
English, today
barre
Borrowed from French barre. a doublet of bar.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA