bare

¹

[bair]

adjective

barer, barest 

1. without covering or clothing; naked; nude.

   bare legs.

   Synonyms: undressed

2. without the usual furnishings, contents, etc..

   bare walls.

   Synonyms: barren, empty, stark, plain

3. open to view; unconcealed; undisguised.

   his bare dislike of neckties.

4. unadorned; bald; plain.

   the bare facts.

5. (of cloth) napless or threadbare.

6. scarcely or just sufficient; mere.

   the bare necessities of life.

7. Obsolete.,  with the head uncovered; bareheaded.

verb (used with object)

bared, baring 

1. to open to view; reveal or divulge.

   to bare one's arms; to bare damaging new facts.

   Synonyms: expose, uncover

bare

²

[bair]

verb

Archaic.

1. simple past tense of bear.

bare

¹

/ bɛə /

adjective

1. unclothed; exposed: used esp of a part of the body

2. without the natural, conventional, or usual covering or clothing

   a bare tree

3. lacking appropriate furnishings, etc

   a bare room

4. unembellished; simple

   the bare facts

5. (prenomial) just sufficient; mere

   he earned the bare minimum

6. without a weapon or tool

verb

1. (tr) to make bare; uncover; reveal

bare

²

/ bɛə /

verb

1. archaic,  a past tense of bear 1

Other Word Forms

• bareness noun
• barish adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of bare¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English bær; cognate with Old Frisian ber, Dutch baar, Old Saxon, Old High German, German bar, Old Norse berr; akin to Armenian bok “naked,” Lithuanian bãsas, Russian bosóĭ “barefoot”

Word History and Origins

Origin of bare¹

Old English bær ; compare Old Norse berr , Old High German bar naked, Old Slavonic bosǔ barefoot

Synonym Study

Bare, stark, barren share the sense of lack or absence of something that might be expected. Bare, the least powerful in connotation of the three, means lack of expected or usual coverings, furnishings, or embellishments: bare floor, feet, head. Stark implies extreme severity or desolation and resultant bleakness or dreariness: a stark landscape; a stark, emotionless countenance. Barren carries a strong sense of sterility and oppressive dullness: barren fields; a barren relationship. See mere ¹.

Example Sentences

Still, he has cut back on eating out and buying new clothes, keeping spending to the bare minimum.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

USC left Ann Arbor, Mich., last season battered and bruised, its narrow September loss to Michigan having laid bare one of the program’s most pressing concerns upon joining the Big Ten.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Complaints on Russian social media about cutbacks to bus routes and bare store shelves, while unverified, are becoming more prevalent.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

More broadly, the furor in Azerbaijan over the crash laid bare Russia’s diminished influence in swaths of its former empire and beyond in the wake of its war in Ukraine.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

A recent government audit of the U.K. relationship with China laid bare how Beijing presented both a threat and an opportunity.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• arid 
• barren 
• bleak 
• desolate 
• empty 
• stark 
• vacant 

When To Use

What else does bare mean?

Bare is UK slang for very or lots of.