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:
It appears that most of those terrestrial planets don't -- they're just bare rock.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 7, 2026
No one sits staring mournfully at the bare lacquered table.
From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2026
The wars in Iran and Ukraine have laid bare the fragility of energy supply chains, and Greece is positioning itself to become a key hub in southeastern Europe for natural gas transport.
From Barron's ● Oct. 5, 2026
If the products at Louis Vuitton and Prada were suddenly 30% cheaper than Zara or H&M, it wouldn’t take long for shoppers to strip the luxury brands’ shelves bare.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026
Once my bare feet flew out from under me and I sat down so hard I grunted.
From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls
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
Every breath shakes down showers of its leafy attire, leaving it gradually barer and barer, for the blasts of winter to blow through it.
From Mirror of the Months by Peter George Patmore
The Hilltop Youth establish the barest of footholds on open land with temporary lodgings and, in many cases, later build homes and raise families.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 6, 2026
If this familiar-looking advice seems like the barest minimum in modern cybersecurity hygiene, that’s because it is.
From Slate ● Aug. 19, 2026
MarketWatch Picks: My Social Security benefits ‘were cut to the barest minimum’ after I retired.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 17, 2026
And survive they did, by the barest of margins, as Marcus Fraser's goal earned a 2-1 aggregate victory over Partick Thistle in the Premiership play-off final, a 1-0 home win on Monday sealing the job.
From BBC ● May 25, 2026
He was working sixteen-hour days, but security meant that he could only tell her the barest details about what he was doing.
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
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
In a hotly-contested race, teeth were occasionally bared and there was some jostling for position in the closing sprint.
From BBC ● Apr. 19, 2025
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
“It is,” Phil says, dimple bared as he grins.
From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed
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
By contrast, A Little More finds Sheeran baring his teeth.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 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
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
There was a half-second pause as it studied him, baring a row of yellow teeth crammed into a gummy black mouth.
From "Beasts of Prey" by Ayana Gray
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