Word.ws English Dictionary

barrel chest

barrel chest noun: a robust chest, often correlated with ample physical strength and endurance, especially among people raised at high altitudes.

Noun

barrel chest (plural barrel chests)

  1. A robust chest, often correlated with ample physical strength and endurance, especially among people raised at high altitudes.
    • There, standing shirtless next to the turquoise pool in the courtyard, was the most masculine human being I had ever seen in my life: broad shoulders, barrel chest (with the perfect amount of hair, of course), and powerful thighs.2024 October 2, Kit Jannar, “My Hetero Hunk of a French Lover Asked Me to F*ck Him Like a Woman”, in Cosmopolitan
  2. A deep and somewhat misshapen chest, sometimes associated with emphysema.

Forms of barrel chest

pluralbarrel chests

Origin of barrel chest

From a figurative resemblance to a barrel (cask): large, convex, and deep in the anteroposterior dimension.

Words formed from barrel chest

Questions about barrel chest

What does barrel chest mean?
Barrel chest means a robust chest, often correlated with ample physical strength and endurance, especially among people raised at high altitudes.
What part of speech is barrel chest?
Barrel chest is a noun.
What is the plural of barrel chest?
The plural of barrel chest is barrel chests.

Words near barrel chest in the dictionary

  1. barrel bombs
  2. barrel bulk
  3. barrel bulks
  4. barrel cacti
  5. barrel cactus
  6. barrel chest
  7. barrel chests
  8. barrel child
  9. barrel children
  10. barrel distortion
  11. barrel drum

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: barrel chest (page history and authors). 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.

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