Meaning

• A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length.

  "The window was protected by steel bars."

• A solid metal object with uniform (round, square, hexagonal, octagonal or rectangular) cross-section; in the US its smallest dimension is 1/4 inch or greater, a piece of thinner material being called a strip.

  "Ancient Sparta used iron bars instead of handy coins in more valuable alloy, to physically discourage the use of money."

• A cuboid piece of any solid commodity.

  "bar of chocolate"

• A broad shaft, or band, or stripe.

  "a bar of colour"

• A long, narrow drawn or printed rectangle, cuboid or cylinder, especially as used in a bar code or a bar chart.

• Any of various lines used as punctuation or diacritics, such as the pipe ⟨|⟩, fraction bar (as in 12), and strikethrough (as in Ⱥ), formerly including oblique marks such as the slash.

• The sign indicating that the characteristic of a logarithm is negative, conventionally placed above the digit(s) to show that it applies to the characteristic only and not to the mantissa.

• A similar sign indicating that the charge on a particle is negative (and that consequently the particle is in fact an antiparticle).

• A business licensed to sell alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises, or the premises themselves; public house.

  "The street was lined with all-night bars."

• The counter of such premises.

  "Step up to the bar and order a drink."

• A counter, or simply a cabinet, from which alcoholic drinks are served in a private house or a hotel room.

• (by extension, in combinations such as coffee bar, juice bar etc.) Premises or a counter serving any type of beverage.

• An establishment where alcohol and sometimes other refreshments are served.

• An informal establishment selling food to be consumed on the premises.

  "a burger bar"

• An establishment offering cosmetic services.

  "a nail bar; a brow bar"

• An official order or pronouncement that prohibits some activity.

  "The club has lifted its bar on women members."

• Anything that obstructs, hinders, or prevents; an obstruction; a barrier.

• (whimsical, derived from fubar) A metasyntactic variable representing an unspecified entity, often the second in a series, following foo.

  "Suppose we have two objects, foo and bar."

• (Parliament) A dividing line (physical or notional) in the chamber of a legislature beyond which only members and officials may pass.

• The railing surrounding the part of a courtroom in which the judges, lawyers, defendants and witnesses stay

• "the Bar" or "the bar" The bar exam, the legal licensing exam.

  "He's studying hard to pass the Bar this time; he's failed it twice before."

• (metonym, "the Bar", "the bar") Collectively, lawyers or the legal profession; specifically applied to barristers in some countries but including all lawyers in others.

  "He was called to the bar, he became a barrister."

• One of an array of bar-shaped symbols that display the level of something, such as wireless signal strength or battery life remaining.

  "I don't have any bars in the middle of this desert."

• A vertical line across a musical staff dividing written music into sections, typically of equal durational value.

• One of those musical sections.

• A horizontal pole that must be crossed in high jump and pole vault

• Any level of achievement regarded as a challenge to be overcome.

• (most codes) The crossbar.

• The central divider between the inner and outer table of a backgammon board, where stones are placed if they are hit.

• An addition to a military medal, on account of a subsequent act

• A linear shoaling landform feature within a body of water.

• A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance, especially a formation extending across the mouth of a river or harbor or off a beach, and which may obstruct navigation. (FM 55-501).

• One of the ordinaries in heraldry; a fess.

• A city gate, in some British place names.

  "Potter's Bar"

• A drilling or tamping rod.

• A vein or dike crossing a lode.

• A gatehouse of a castle or fortified town.

• The part of the crust of a horse's hoof which is bent inwards towards the frog at the heel on each side, and extends into the centre of the sole.

• (in the plural) The space between the tusks and grinders in the upper jaw of a horse, in which the bit is placed.