barber
[bahr-ber]
- a person whose occupation it is to cut and dress the hair of customers, especially men, and to shave or trim the beard.
- frost smoke.
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- to trim or dress the hair or beard of.
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Origin of barber
1275–1325; Middle English barbour < Anglo-French; Old French barbeor, equivalent to barb(e) (< Latin barba beard) + -eor < Latin -ātōr- -ator
Barber
[bahr-ber]
- Samuel,1910–81, U.S. composer.
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Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for barber
Contemporary Examples
Business owners swept up glass in front of their barber shop.
That is why Malloy is campaigning on a lonely stretch of barber shops and boxing gyms in New Haven a week before the election.
Dan Malloy Is Progressives’ Dream Governor. So Why Isn’t He Winning?David Freedlander
October 30, 2014
“If you say a bad word about someone here, it gets around fast,” said Jack West, the barber.
He looked, that dreadful afternoon, as if he had just come from his barber, tailor and haberdasher.
Admirable stuff, but also on his agenda could be just a fleeting visit to a barber.
Historical Examples
Barber and Stillwell and Colpetzer and their associates did not die in vain.
The Works of Whittier, Volume VII (of VII)John Greenleaf Whittier
I shall not go to bed till night; but I want a bedroom, and a barber.
A Tale of Two CitiesCharles Dickens
Grasping the situation I replied that I did not like my barber.
City of Endless NightMilo Hastings
He was the son of a barber at Laval, in Maine, where he was born in 1509.
Self-HelpSamuel Smiles
It is so called from a fancied resemblance to a wig on a barber's block.
The Mushroom, Edible and OtherwiseM. E. Hard
barber
- a person whose business is cutting men's hair and shaving or trimming beards
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- to cut the hair of
- to shave or trim the beard of
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Word Origin
C13: from Old French barbeor, from barbe beard, from Latin barba
Barber
- Samuel . 1910–81, US composer: his works include an Adagio for Strings, adapted from the second movement of his string quartet No. 1 (1936) and the opera Vanessa (1958)
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for barber
n.
c.1300, from Anglo-French barbour (attested as a surname from early 13c.), from Old French barbeor, barbieor (Modern French barbier, which has a more restricted sense than the English word), from Vulgar Latin *barbatorem, from Latin barba "beard" (see barb (n.)). Originally also regular practitioners of surgery, they were restricted to haircutting and dentistry under Henry VIII.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper