bare
1 Americanadjective
-
without covering or clothing; naked; nude.
bare legs.
- Synonyms:
- undressed
-
without the usual furnishings, contents, etc..
bare walls.
-
open to view; unconcealed; undisguised.
his bare dislike of neckties.
-
unadorned; bald; plain.
the bare facts.
-
(of cloth) napless or threadbare.
-
scarcely or just sufficient; mere.
the bare necessities of life.
-
Obsolete. with the head uncovered; bareheaded.
verb (used with object)
verb
adjective
-
unclothed; exposed: used esp of a part of the body
-
without the natural, conventional, or usual covering or clothing
a bare tree
-
lacking appropriate furnishings, etc
a bare room
-
unembellished; simple
the bare facts
-
(prenomial) just sufficient; mere
he earned the bare minimum
-
without a weapon or tool
verb
verb
Usage
What else does bare mean? Bare is UK slang for very or lots of.
Synonym Usage
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.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of bare
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”
Explanation
When you kick off your shoes to walk on the beach, you are enjoying the feeling of your bare feet in the warm sand. The adjective bare describes something or someone that is naked or unclothed. Bare can be used in many different ways: to describe the inside of your nearly-empty refrigerator, an uncarpeted floor, or your unadorned, sparsely decorated bedroom. The word bare can also be used as a verb meaning "to uncover or expose." When you reveal deep truths about yourself to another person — imagine confessing your passion for stamp collecting to a girl you like — you "bare your soul."
Vocabulary lists containing bare
Commonly Confused Words, List 1
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"Mother to Son"
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Commonly Confused Words, List 4
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“What is required by law as far as disclosure should be treated as the bare minimum,” he said.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026
All of the influence efforts have laid bare the steep climb for Israel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
The warm, cozy feeling of the home is in sharp contrast to the vacant, bare property that Mowry-Housley and Housley set their sights on as their next major project.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 2, 2026
"The effort it took me to get her out of there with my bare hands, with sledgehammers, with pickaxes... you can't even begin to imagine," he said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026
The bare and lonely fact of it made her feel like a solitary stalk of grass left waving forlornly in a field after the thresher had come and harvested all the rest for hay.
From "The Interrupted Tale" by Maryrose Wood
The album’s indictments of America’s failures are no different from his songs like “Pink Houses,” but their messages are barer and nearly impossible to misinterpret.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2023
"All around me staff are leaving, staff are crying... many people are already voting with their feet and leaving. But of course that just strips the service even barer."
From BBC ● Dec. 5, 2022
A glacier can provide some protection, preserving piles of snow year-round that can even be deployed on barer ski pistes elsewhere on the slopes.
From Reuters ● Aug. 27, 2021
These people, in other words, were also nostalgic for earlier times; we aren’t the first generation to wish our children’s playroom shelves were barer.
From Slate ● Dec. 24, 2018
Our teamsters who had been through by the Overland Trail said that the Bitter Creek desert was yet worse: drier, barer, dustier and uglier.
From Desert Dust by Shepherd, J. Clinton
"We have been given the barest of details and whilst we are supporting the families through this we are urgently seeking a meeting with the appropriate authorities to understand the situation before commenting further."
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
Greenspan exhibited a deft touch with financial markets, saying the barest minimum in his statements but seemingly always conveying what traders wanted to hear.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026
One theory is that men just aren’t taught about the finer points of hygiene—that because cleanliness is dismissed as a feminine trait, parents give boys only the barest instruction in why and how to clean.
From Slate ● May 17, 2024
Almost everything they grew went to the landowners as rent payments, leaving them with the barest of means to survive.
From Salon ● Mar. 14, 2024
The nearest island was nothing more than a giant rock with the barest scrub of green.
From "When the Sea Turned to Silver" by Grace Lin
The pages capture the inner thoughts of someone who found himself at the center of history, as if Oppenheimer grabbed a pen and bared his soul during the Manhattan Project.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 9, 2026
"I bared my life, I went through so much, I dedicated myself to sobriety and God told me that I would be rewarded."
From BBC ● Feb. 2, 2025
All conveyed with a smile: chin down, eyes up, teeth bared.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2024
Many of the women wept as Francis washed their feet, gently pouring water over one bared foot and patting it dry with a small towel.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 28, 2024
Shadow bared his yellowed fangs and started climbing.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
As temperatures rise this summer, Japanese men are baring more leg at work than ever before.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
Dog owners are baring their teeth on social media after the European Union's top court ruled that pets are not passengers just baggage if they get lost in transit.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2025
News reports and social media accounts in Mexico have widely circulated images of U.S. agents in tactical gear facing off against protesters baring Mexican flags.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2025
The joy of reaching the final, and in the manner he did it, was shown by Norrie baring his teeth and shouting his pleasure towards his team.
From BBC ● Nov. 8, 2024
He gestured toward the black mamba and the mongoose again, and as if cued, the mongoose hissed, baring small, pointed teeth as its amber eyes flashed.
From "Beasts of Prey" by Ayana Gray
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
