five-barred gate

Noun

five-barred gate (plural five-barred gates)

1. A wide, usually wooden gate consisting of five horizontal bars and one or more diagonal braces, typically used as a field gate for livestock or as an entrance to a rural driveway.
   • The only revenge which the younger Clergy cou’d return, wou’d be […] to order that whosoever cou’d not read a Geneva-Bible at two yards distance and vault over a five-barr’d Gate, should forfeit his Mitre […]1690, Thomas Brown, The Late Converts Exposed, page 17
   • […] they set out together, and with some difficulty found Gilbert [the horse] with his neck stretched over a five-barred gate, snuffing up the morning-air.1762, Tobias Smollett, The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, volume 1, page 167
2. (UK) Tally marks representing 5, made up of four vertical lines crossed by a diagonal line, used to count objects, keep score, etc.
   • When we come to the fifth score we do not make a further upright stroke, but a diagonal stroke from top right to bottom left across the previous four—and this stroke completes the Five-Barred Gate […]1973, Frank Herbert Hansford-Miller, Quantitative Geography for Schools: Book One, page 15
   • Items are grouped in fives, and each fifth item is a cross stroke on the first four strokes. Each set of five is sometimes known as a five-bar gate.2009, Shaun Procter-Green, AQA GCSE Statistics, section 3.1