bare
1 Americanadjective
-
barer,
comparative
-
barest
superlative
-
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:
For our presence to take hold, we must lay bare the emotions we covet so stubbornly, the emotions found in the look of those we love, of those we call family.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
Big cheers to Chelsea Handler for taking up a travel etiquette cause we can probably all agree on: bare feet on planes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
Award show producers seemed to scramble for hosts that didn’t already have a record of ruffling feathers and could, at the bare minimum, garner a few chuckles from the crowd.
From Salon ● Sep. 8, 2026
Their long nights of text messaging were laid bare and many of the messages shown to the jury.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026
I feel my bare toes brush against canvas.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
"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 soul barer and a tireless collaborator, Nate Dogg was the preeminent rap vocalist of the 1990s.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 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
Rather than making collective progress on dealing with the virus, the contours of our inability to do so are being laid, somehow, barer.
From Slate ● Jul. 1, 2020
Just as in Switzerland the gables of the chalets match the pine-clad slopes and lofty summits of the mountains, so in Greece, amid barer hills of less elevation, the Greek temple looks thoroughly in place.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 4 "Grasshopper" to "Greek Language" by Various
If this familiar-looking advice seems like the barest minimum in modern cybersecurity hygiene, that’s because it is.
From Slate ● Aug. 19, 2026
Pearl diving often relied on the barest necessities: a noseclip, leather finger covers and a basket to gather oysters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
MarketWatch Picks: My Social Security benefits ‘were cut to the barest minimum’ after I retired.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 17, 2026
It's a world away from old school royal releases which stuck to the barest of details and stayed as dry as the desert.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2024
The barest trace of magic stirred the air.
From "Aru Shah and the End of Time" by Roshani Chokshi
Behind the squad's pride are raw emotions, which were bared by assistant manager Anthony Barry during his half-time interview with BBC One on Saturday night - conducted when England were 4-0 up.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026
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
Four months later, in a halting six-minute address punctuated by deep breaths and stifled sobs, Alex Vesia publicly bared his battered soul.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 13, 2026
“And on this project, I think that she bared a lot.”
From Seattle Times ● May 24, 2024
Churro shook water off himself, then bared his teeth and growled at the Evans family.
From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz
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
It doesn't feel like a difficult thing to do, or something that feels like I'm baring my soul or anything.
From BBC ● Jan. 24, 2025
“I like to play with my food,” she taunts, baring rows of sharpened, yellowed teeth.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
The direwolf turned his head and looked down at him, baring his fangs in a silent snarl.
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
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.
