barrier
Americannoun
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barriers
plural
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anything built or serving to bar passage, as a railing, fence, or the like.
People may pass through the barrier only when their train is announced.
- Synonyms:
- impediment, hindrance, obstruction, wall, palisade
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any natural bar or obstacle.
a mountain barrier.
- Synonyms:
- impediment, hindrance, obstruction
-
anything that restrains or obstructs progress, access, etc..
a trade barrier.
- Synonyms:
- impediment, hindrance, obstruction
-
a limit or boundary of any kind.
the barriers of caste.
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Physical Geography. an Antarctic ice shelf or ice front.
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History/Historical. barriers, the palisade or railing surrounding the ground where tourneys and jousts were carried on.
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Archaic. a fortress or stockade.
noun
-
anything serving to obstruct passage or to maintain separation, such as a fence or gate
-
anything that prevents or obstructs passage, access, or progress
a barrier of distrust
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anything that separates or hinders union
a language barrier
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an exposed offshore sand bar separated from the shore by a lagoon
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( as modifier )
a barrier beach
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(sometimes capital) that part of the Antarctic icecap extending over the sea
Synonym Usage
See bar 1.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of barrier
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English, from Middle French barriere ( barre bar 1 + -iere, from Latin -āria -ary ); replacing Middle English barrere, from Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin barrera
Explanation
Barriers are walls, either physical or metaphorical. They can block movement — the Great Wall of China was a barrier to block invading forces from entering. A window shade is a light barrier. Failing English is a barrier to getting into Harvard. When people are being excluded from joining a clique, you could say that the clique has erected a social barrier. When fighter jets fly faster than the speed of sound, they break through what feels like a wall in the sky called the sound barrier. The Green Monster at Fenway Park keeps Boston Red Sox fans from being able to watch games from outside the stadium — it's a barrier to sight. But when line drives hit the Green Monster, bouncing the ball back into left field, the Green Monster acts also a barrier to easy home runs.
Vocabulary lists containing barrier
Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1791)
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25 Words from "Baseball and Black History"
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Unit 3: Compelling Evidence
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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:
Among these parents, the main barrier was not knowing how to start.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 23, 2026
I’ve never found that to be a barrier to entry, especially for something so balls-to-the-wall exciting as these movies.
From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2026
The open-source AI assistant OpenClaw went viral in January, but using it required a certain level of technical knowledge, creating a barrier for ordinary consumers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026
“I think the headline is that last quarter, the biggest barrier was trust in models. This quarter it’s trust in leadership. It was a pretty abrupt shift in what we were tracking,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
I continued also the wish to be with you, and experienced a strange, regretful consciousness of some barrier dividing us.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
"There are various barriers to people getting good help for migraine," she said.
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
We all have various barriers, whether they’re external or internal.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
“We cannot ever be complacent,” Ms. Berg says, as she navigates the barriers outside her buildings, each bollard proof of how hard it is for a German Jew to live in peace.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
While many autocallable ETFs have coupon barriers, funds launched by ProShares in August do not, Simeon Hyman, global investment strategist at ProShares, told MarketWatch in an interview.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026
Still, it seemed unlikely that the river would overflow the high barriers designed to keep it from flooding.
From "Meltdown" by Deirdre Langeland
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.
