barrier
verbEtymology From Middle English barrer, barrere, barryȝer, from Anglo-Norman barrere (compare French barrière), from barre (“bar”).
1
To block or obstruct with a barrier.
barrier
nounUK /ˈbæɹi.ə/ · /ˈbæɹi.ɚ/
Etymology From Middle English barrer, barrere, barryȝer, from Anglo-Norman barrere (compare French barrière), from barre (“bar”).
7 senses
1
A structure that bars passage.
- The bus went through a railway barrier and was hit by a train.
- The bomber had passed through one checkpoint before blowing himself up at a second barrier.
2
An obstacle or impediment.
- Even a small fee can be a barrier for some students.
- If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us is that life will not be contained- life breaks free, it expands to new territories, and it crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously but,... uh... well, there it is.1993, Jurassic Park, Universal Pictures, →OCLC:
1 more example
- America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 ([…]): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 11:
3
A boundary or limit.
- Few marathon runners break the three-hour time barrier.
- The downside of normalization is that it erects a defensive barrier between the real world and the perceived i.e. normalized world.2025 April 21, Charles Hugh Smith, What's "Normal" in a Hyper-Normalized World?:
4
Grammar, Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences A node (in government and binding theory) said to intervene between other nodes A and B if it is a potential governor for B, c-commands B, and does not c-command A.
5
Medicine, Physiology, Sciences A separation between two areas of the body where specialized cells allow the entry of certain substances but prevent the entry of others.
6
Historical The lists in a tournament.
7
Historical, In plural A martial exercise of the 15th and 16th centuries.
- Derived terms
69 terms
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