barb

CEFRC2

/bɑː(ɹ)b/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A sharp point on a wire, hook, or plant.

  2. 02

    noun

    A remark that is deliberately unkind or critical.

Examples

  • My coat got caught on a barb on the barbed wire.

  • The barb on fishhooks make them difficult to remove.

At a glance

Sits at C2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A beard, or that which resembles it, or grows in the place of it.

  2. A hurtful or disparaging remark.

  3. The point that stands backward in an arrow, fishhook, etc., to prevent it from being easily extracted. Hence: Anything which stands out with a sharp point obliquely or crosswise to something else.

More examples

In context

  • to trade barbs

  • Having two barbs or points.

  • And she was the only girl in class who did not, sometime through the lesson, get a barb of sarcasm from Miss Brownell, though she made as many mistakes as the rest of them.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

Each hook had a sharp blank that made it hard to remove.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

PIE word *bʰardʰéh₂ From Middle English barbe, from Middle French barbe, from Old French barbe (“beard, beard-like element”). Doublet of beard.