Definition of BARED

Choose the Right Synonym for bare

Adjective

bare, naked, nude, bald, barren mean deprived of naturally or conventionally appropriate covering. bare implies the removal of what is additional, superfluous, ornamental, or dispensable. an apartment with bare walls naked suggests absence of protective or ornamental covering but may imply a state of nature, of destitution, or of defenselessness. poor half-naked children nude applies especially to the unclothed human figure. a nude model posing for art students bald implies actual or seeming absence of natural covering and may suggest a conspicuous bareness. a bald mountain peak barren often suggests aridity or impoverishment or sterility. barren plains

Usage Note on Bear

Adjective

There is considerable confusion between the verbs bear and bare. It may help to remember that the verb bare has only one meaning: "to uncover," as in "bare your shoulders" and "a dog baring its teeth." All other uses of the verb are for bear: "bearing children," "the right to bear arms," "bearing up under the stress/weight," "can't bear the thought," "bear south," "it bears repeating."

There is occasional confusion between bear and bare in adjectival uses (as in "he rubbed his bear arms"), but bear is properly a noun and only used like an adjective in the financial phrase bear market. All other uses refer to the state of being uncovered or naked and should therefore be bare: "bare necessities," "bare essentials," "bare arms," "bare bones," "bare-knuckle," and so on.

Usage Note on Bear

Verb

Examples of bare in a Sentence

Adjective

The brittle-looking branches of bare trees reached up from the horizon, and smoke could be seen curling from the chimneys of the sturdy stone houses in the villages we passed through. — David McAninch, Saveur, November 2008 The dining room is warm and comfortable in a quasi-Tuscan-villa style, with bare wood floors, mottled walls, … and a glass room divider etched with images of grapes. — Colman Andrews, Gourmet, March 2007 A scant two hours after his Derby victory, Monarchos was back in his … stall, beneath a bare bulb, eating carrots from a red bucket. — Steve Rushin, Sports Illustrated, 14 May 2001 There was a rug in the front room of the house, but the other floors were bare. Do not let the bare wires touch. He covered her bare arms with his coat. He had a glove on his left hand, but his right hand was bare. The ground was bare where the statue had stood for years. There was only one bare shelf. Her office was pretty bare, having only one desk and one chair. This is the barest room in the house. He only told me the bare facts about what happened.

Verb

Ed McMahon calls upon the canine coach to help him settle down his aggressive … terrier, which is nice to Ed but bares its teeth at guests. — TV Guide, 29 Oct.-4 Nov. 2007 You could argue that the very act of conducting a lengthy poll by telephone skews the response pool. What sort of person bares her soul to pollsters for upward of an hour—and during the holiday season yet? — Katha Pollitt, Nation, 4/11 Aug. 2003 When Eastman called Death in the Afternoon (Hemingway's nonfiction book about bullfighting) "a literary style of wearing false hair on the chest," Hemingway had no other options than to bare his hirsute midsection and duke it out with his rival author in front of their editor, Max Perkins. The common mythology is that Hemingway beat Eastman to a bloody pulp, but Perkins' account had Eastman gaining the upper hand. — Will Manley, Booklist, 1 Apr. 2001 The better analogy is to bare all on the talk shows in which ordinary people are encouraged to reveal intimate aspects of their private lives. — Richard A. Posner, New Republic, 21 Aug. 2000 He bared his chest to show the scar. finally bared the secret that she had kept to herself for so long

Recent Examples on the Web: Adjective

Hockney, of all people, is aware that averting one’s gaze from the bare male form (as mainstream cinema has traditionally done, to its comical shame) means shunning a theme that has threaded like a vine through the history of art. — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, "“The Dead Don’t Die” Does the Zombie Genre to Death," 14 June 2019 His father died when García was six, and for a few years García attended elementary school with a throng of local children in a one-room building perched on poles, its bare unpainted walls made of split bamboo. — Charles David Kleymeyer, Smithsonian, "Meet Juan García Salazar, the Man Who Championed Black Identity in Ecuador," 14 June 2019 The back-and-forth laid bare the rising political stakes for each, even with the election about 17 months away. — Thomas Beaumont, Time, "President Trump and Biden Furiously Trade Barbs in Overlapping Iowa Events," 13 June 2019 Cronin sits in an empty office with bare walls and a previous coach’s furniture. — Scott Gleeson, USA TODAY, "UCLA coach Mick Cronin wants a national title — but doesn't care about the doubters," 13 June 2019 As with North Korea, the president created drama in the headlines, quickly accepted the bare minimum gesture from the other side, and declared victory. — Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, "Trump Is Vulnerable to Biden on Immigration," 11 June 2019 The boys would improve young timber stands by thinning, help carve new access roads and trails into the forest areas, plant seedlings on bare lands, stabilize eroding stream banks by hand-planting. — Hubert H. (hubert Horatio) Humphrey, Harper's magazine, "Into the Woods," 10 June 2019 As Congress was preparing its budget for 1989, there was a strong push in the senate to only provide a bare minimum of funding—about $250 million—for its development, far short of Reagan’s request of nearly $1 billion. — Daniel Oberhaus, WIRED, "NASA Went to the Stock Exchange to Try to Sell the ISS," 7 June 2019 Duck Donuts: Free (bare, cinnamon sugar or powdered sugar) classic donut Krispy Kreme: Free donuts. — Sarah Horne, Cincinnati.com, "It's National Doughnut Day! Here's where to get some freebies in the Cincinnati area," 6 June 2019

Recent Examples on the Web: Verb

Like clockwork, those who have had abortions—including cis women as well as trans men and non-binary people—come forward to lay bare some of their most personal stories. — Anna Borges, SELF, "On Choosing to Share Your Abortion Story Online—Or Not," 14 June 2019 Offices were outfitted with whiteboards; there were bedrooms for employees, plus a wine cellar and a library, its shelves mostly bare. — Neil Shea, National Geographic, "Tokyo became a megacity by reinventing itself," 12 June 2019 The decision to cover — or bare — a body part is an individual, and often personal, choice, and no one deserves to be shamed or judged for their clothing decisions, period. — De Elizabeth, Teen Vogue, "Billie Eilish Reveals the Reason for Her Baggy Clothes in New Calvin Klein Ad," 11 May 2019 El Paso lays bare the mixed feelings the border inspires. — Will Weissert, The Seattle Times, "El Paso bristles at Trump’s claim that wall made city safe," 11 Feb. 2019 But rather than tip the scales towards equity, the gender swap lays bare the fact that such deceptive and manipulative behavior from anyone is inexcusable. — De Elizabeth, Teen Vogue, "I Really Tried to Like “Sierra Burgess,” But Catfishing Isn’t Romantic — It’s Harmful," 10 Sep. 2018 Journalists saw young men stripping shelves bare in some supermarkets that were charred during the demonstrations, and several bodies were seen in the streets. — NBC News, "Strike shuts down Haiti capital after three days of protests," 9 July 2018 Less than a year after the 19-year-old daughter of actor Johnny Depp and model Vanessa Paradis participated in a topless fashion shoot with CR Fashion Book, Depp has dared to bare again. — Maria Pasquini, PEOPLE.com, "Lily-Rose Depp Smiles While Posing Topless on the Beach in Vogue Russia Shoot," 23 June 2018 So Pedersen set it motion a year-long process — promulgating rules, getting the governor’s signature, getting the Legislature and on March 15 Wyoming was ready to help make bare-knuckle history. — Josh Peter, USA TODAY, "Fight club: Legalized bare-knuckle boxing may be next big show in ring," 4 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'bare.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.