bare necessities

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Just sufficient resources, with nothing to spare. For example, The room was furnished with just the bare necessities—bed, table, chair. This idiom uses bare in the sense of “mere, and nothing else,” a usage dating from about 1200.

QUIZ

QUIZ YOURSELF ON "WAS" VS. "WERE"!

Were you ready for a quiz on this topic? Well, here it is! See how well you can differentiate between the uses of "was" vs. "were" in this quiz.

Question 1 of 7

“Was” is used for the indicative past tense of “to be,” and “were” is only used for the subjunctive past tense.

true

false

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Words nearby bare necessities

barelegged, barely, bare lymphocyte syndrome, bare-naked, Barenboim, bare necessities, Barents, Barents Sea, bare one's soul, bare one's teeth, bare-root

How to use bare necessities in a sentence

This year, a bare-bones welfare program will continue into the New Year without being updated.
To GOP Congress, as Usual, It’s Welfare on the Chopping Block|Monica Potts|December 25, 2014|DAILY BEAST
“Bare [sic] with me on vlogmas,” she told her fans in a Tweet.
Meet Zoella—The Newbie Author Whose Book Sales Topped J.K. Rowling|Lucy Scholes|December 11, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The further forward bare-boned science goes, however, the more forceful the counter- response.
Honey Boo Boo, Snake Oil, and Ebola: The Weird World of Young Living Essential Oils|Kent Sepkowitz|December 5, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Houses were evacuated and stripped bare, and civilians vanished at the sight of a truck.
‘Argo’ in the Congo: The Ghosts of the Stanleyville Hostage Crisis|Nina Strochlic|November 23, 2014|DAILY BEAST

The American Academy of Pediatrics advocates for infants to be put to sleep in a bare crib to prevent SIDS.
Kids Eat the Darndest Things: Laundry Pods, Teething Necklaces, and More Of The Weirdest Stuff Sending Kids to the E.R.|Russell Saunders|November 14, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Eggs and nestlings were found lying on the bare soil at the inner ends of the burrows; no nesting material was found.
Summer Birds From the Yucatan Peninsula|Erwin E. Klaas
Sometimes the stems are quite bare; on other occasions they are partly branched; in any case the branches are short.
How to Know the Ferns|S. Leonard Bastin
She thrust a bare, white arm from the curtain which shielded her open door, and received the cup from his hands.
The Awakening and Selected Short Stories|Kate Chopin
From Canada on the north, to Texas on the south, the hot winds had laid the land seemingly bare.
The Homesteader|Oscar Micheaux
Her little neck and arms were bare, and her hair, artificially crimped, stood out like fluffy black plumes over her head.
The Awakening and Selected Short Stories|Kate Chopin