Word.ws English Dictionary

barb

/bɑː(ɹ)b/

barb noun: 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.

Noun (1)

barb (plural barbs)

  1. 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.
    • Having two barbs or points.1545, Roger Ascham, Toxophilus
  2. (figuratively) A hurtful or disparaging remark.
    • to trade barbs
    • 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.1923, Lucy Maud Montgomery, “Chapter 8”, in Emily of New Moon
  3. A beard, or that which resembles it, or grows in the place of it.
    1. A barbel on a fish's face.
      • The barbel is so called […]by reason of his barbs, or wattles at his mouth.1653, Iz[aak] Wa[lton], The Compleat Angler or The Contemplative Man’s Recreation. Being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing, […], London: […] T. Maxey for Rich[ard] Marriot, […], →OCLC; reprinted as The...
  4. One of the many side branches of a feather, which collectively constitute the vane.
  5. Any of various species of freshwater carp-like fish that have barbels and belong to the cyprinid family.
    Synonyms:
    barbel
  6. (US) The sciaenid fish Menticirrhus americanus, found along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States.
    Synonyms:
    Carolina whiting, king whiting, southern kingcroaker, southern kingfish
  7. A hair or bristle ending in a double hook.
  8. (obsolete) A muffler, worn by nuns and mourners.
  9. Paps, or little projections, of the mucous membrane, which mark the opening of the submaxillary glands under the tongue in horses and cattle. The name is mostly applied when the barbs are inflamed and swollen.
    Synonyms:
    barbel, barble
  10. (obsolete) A bit for a horse.
    • His loftie steed with golden sell
      And goodly gorgeous barbes.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  11. A plastic fastener, shaped roughly like a capital I (with serifs), used to attach socks etc. to their packaging.

Verb (1)

barb (third-person singular simple present barbs, present participle barbing, simple past and past participle barbed)

  1. To furnish with barbs, or with that which will hold or hurt like barbs, as an arrow, fishhook, spear, etc.
    • […] for this day will pour down, / If I conjecture aught, no drizzling shower, / But rattling storm of arrows barbed with fire.1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
    • Undoubtedly—when Ingratitude barbs the Dart of Injury—the wound has double danger in it—1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, IV.iii
  2. (Nigeria) To cut (hair).
  3. (obsolete) To shave or dress the beard of.
  4. (obsolete) To clip; to mow.
    • O thou pale ſober night, / […] / The ſtooping Sitheman that dooth barbe the field, / Thou makſt winke ſure: […]c. 1603 (date written), Iohn Marston, The Malcontent, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for William Aspley, […], published 1604, →OCLC, Act III, scene ii

Noun (2)

barb (plural barbs)

  1. The Barbary horse, a superior breed introduced from Barbary into Spain by the Moors.
    • Why sends not the Bridegroom his promised gift, / Is his heart more cold, or his barb less swift?1813, Lord Byron, The Giaour, a Fragment of a Turkish Tale, 8th edition, London: […] Thomas Davison, […], for John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 34, lines 699–700
    • However, in the last few years, the stud farms in Morocco and elsewhere in the world have rediscovered the qualities of the barb, which, in Berber tradition, remains the king of the "fantasias", a festival that is also becoming fashionable once again.2009 October, Laurent Roustan, “The Horse, Present since the Dawn of Time”, in Alphatrad Internationale, transl., Au Royaume du Cheval: Les Haras Nationaux du Maroc [In the Kingdom of the Horse: The...
  2. A blackish or dun variety of pigeon, originally brought from Barbary.

Noun (3)

barb (plural barbs)

  1. (informal) A barbiturate.
    • The benzos, it turns out, are just as highly addicting as the barbs, but they do have a much lower potential to cause death by overdose. […] The barbs became one of the most widely abused classes of drugs in the 1960s and 1970s.1998, Jerry Dorsman, How to Quit Drugs for Good: A Complete Self-Help Guide, New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, →ISBN, page 50

Noun (4)

barb (plural barbs)

  1. Armor for a horse.
    • The defensive armor with the horses of the ancient knights ... These are frequently, though improperly, stiled barbs.1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 29

Verb (2)

barb (third-person singular simple present barbs, present participle barbing, simple past and past participle barbed)

  1. To cover a horse in armor.
    • And now, in stead of mounting barbed steeds / To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, / He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber[…].c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...

Proper noun capitalized: Barb

Barb

  1. A diminutive of the female given name Barbara.
  2. A surname.

Noun (5) capitalized: Barb

Barb (plural Barbz or Barbs)

  1. (slang) A fan of American rapper and singer Nicki Minaj.
    • Minaj is thrilled to be returning to her legion of Aussie Barbz this October in a brand new full-scale arena show.2012 August, “Forward Line”, in Inpress, number 1235, page 14
    • I’m not a Barb, but Nicki Minaj totally made me do a 180 on the whole hating-her-songs-and-general-vibe thing I had going on when I went to review her in concert.2012 December 27, “The year in music”, in Fast Forward Weekly

barb meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

barb in Hindi

बार्ब

barb in Urdu

آنکڑی, کانٹا, خار, سنان, چھیدنا, حجامت کرنا

barb in Bengali

কাঁটা, হুল, কটু কথা

barb in Telugu

బార్బ్
More languagesFewer languages
barb in Malayalam
പരൽ paral
barb in Kannada
ಬಾರ್ಬ್
barb in Gujarati
બાર્બ
barb in Odia
ବାର୍ବ, ବାର୍ବ୍
barb in Nepali
बार्ब, बारब
barb in Tagalog
tawes
barb in Vietnamese
ngạnh, cá mè

Examples of barb in a sentence

  • Or if you were a figment of my imagination.” The barb hurt, but she didn't blame him.2018, Elle Wright, Wherever You Are (The Jacksons of Ann Arbor), HarperCollins, →ISBN:
  • Indeed, a nail filed sharp is not of much avail as an arrowhead; you must have it barbed, and that was a little beyond our skill.1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter II, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC:
  • Her coat was a tangled mass, barbed with last year's burs, matted disgustingly with cow dung.1944, Emily Carr, “Meg the Worker”, in The House of All Sorts:

All 15 example sentences with barb

Synonyms of barb

  • barbel
  • Carolina whiting
  • king whiting
  • southern kingcroaker
  • southern kingfish
  • barble

All synonyms of barb

Forms of barb

Noun
pluralbarbs
pluralBarbz
pluralBarbs
Verb
third-person singular presentbarbs
present participlebarbing
past participlebarbed
pastbarbed

Past tense of barb: barbed

Plural of barb: barbs

Origin of barb

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

Clipping of Barbary.

Clipping of barbiturate.

Words formed from barb

Phrases with barb

Words that rhyme with barb

Questions about barb

What does barb mean?
Barb means 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.
What is barb in Hindi?
Barb in Hindi is बार्ब. See Barb meaning in Hindi.
How do you use barb in a sentence?
Or if you were a figment of my imagination.” The barb hurt, but she didn't blame him.
What part of speech is barb?
Barb can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce barb?
Barb is pronounced /bɑː(ɹ)b/.
What is the plural of barb?
The plural of barb is barbs.

Words near barb in the dictionary

  1. Barayong
  2. Barays
  3. baraza
  4. barazas
  5. barazoku
  6. barb
  7. barb wire
  8. barb wires
  9. barb-wire
  10. barb-wires
  11. Barb.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: barb (page history and authors); Barb (page history and authors); barb (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); barb (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); barb (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); barb (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); barb (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); barb (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); barb (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); barb (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-barb.ogg, En-au-Barb.ogg.

Cite this entry: “barb.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/barb. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.