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:
"Without any specialized equipment to move the rocks, they used their bare hands to remove them until they could pull me out."
From Barron's ● Jul. 4, 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 three daily meals that CoreCivic provides at California City Detention Facility are the bare minimum to keep a person alive,” they wrote.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
In some areas, neighbours and family members have been searching for loved ones with their bare hands and any tools they can access.
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026
Although I was sleeping on the bare earth, I felt cocooned in the sublime rest I had been granted.
From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo
"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
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
Even the asphodel, which covers all the barer and stonier tracts with its fields of bloom, was here scarce and poor.
From Rambles and Studies in Greece by Mahaffy, J. P.
MarketWatch Picks: My Social Security benefits ‘were cut to the barest minimum’ after I retired.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 17, 2026
Before the tray goes into the oven, I dust everything with the barest whisper of cardamom.
From Salon ● Dec. 16, 2025
The assistant referee did actually flag for offside, but it was extremely tight and VAR subsequently spent several minutes checking Archer's position, with the Saints forward eventually being ruled onside by the barest of margins.
From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2024
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
Even now, she could see only the barest outline of the girl she had been before.
From "How to Disappear Completely" by Ali Standish
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
Mitch’s cloddish rejection of her is all the more devastating after all that she has courageously bared to him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2025
All conveyed with a smile: chin down, eyes up, teeth bared.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2024
“And on this project, I think that she bared a lot.”
From Seattle Times ● May 24, 2024
“My favorite researchers,” he said, his teeth strong and slightly yellowed, bared in a wide grin.
From "Pet" by Akwaeke Emezi
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
Australia are the favourites here, but this was a baring of teeth - the Proteas are not going to roll over and have their tummies tickled.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 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
Bailey understands that baring so much comes with certain risks.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2024
The man fell back, and his pinscher dæmon, who had been baring her teeth at the mild-mannered golden monkey, instantly cowered and tucked her tail stump as low as it would go.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
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.
