barbed wire

noun

1. a wire or strand of wires having small pieces of sharply pointed wire twisted around it at short intervals, used chiefly for fencing in livestock, keeping out trespassers, etc.

barbed wire

noun

1. Also called (US): barbwire. strong wire with sharply pointed barbs at close intervals

Word History and Origins

Origin of barbed wire¹

First recorded in 1860–65

Example Sentences

If I look closely, I can see tiny red thorns pointing out from the surface—like a wall of botanical barbed wire.

Read more on Literature

Seidel saw a man in the West, with tears in his eyes, staring through barbed wire at a two-year-old boy holding the hand of an old woman in the East.

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The star of The Traitors Series 3, who was eliminated on episode two, previously told the BBC that the pain she suffered was comparable to that of "barbed wire around her stomach".

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Instead, a building at an airport, lying behind barbed wire and security checkpoints.

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Between the outpost and the ruins rises a sand berm about two stories high and topped with barbed wire.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• fence 
• fencing