1
: a round bulging vessel of greater length than breadth that is usually made of staves bound with hoops and has flat ends of equal diameter
2
a
: the amount contained in a barrel
especially
: the amount (such as 31 gallons of fermented beverage or 42 gallons of petroleum) fixed for a certain commodity used as a unit of measure
b
: a great quantity
3
: a drum or cylindrical part: such as
a
: the discharging tube of a gun
b
: the part of a fountain pen or of a pencil containing the ink or lead
c
: a cylindrical or tapering housing containing the optical components of a photographic-lens system and the iris diaphragm
d
: the fuel outlet from the carburetor on a gasoline engine
e
: the flat, cylindrical metal box that encloses the mainspring of a timepiece
4
: the trunk of a quadruped
barreled or barrelled; barreling or barrelling
: to put or pack in a barrel
: to move at a high speed or without hesitation
Examples of barrel in a Sentence
Noun
Oak barrels are used for aging the wine.
The price of oil is over 30 dollars a barrel.
They drank a whole barrel of beer.
the barrel of a gun
Verb
The truck went barreling down Main Street.
She came running out of her office and went barreling past us down the hall.
Recent Examples on the Web
Alec Luhn, Scientific American, 20 May 2025
The International Monetary Fund has estimated that oil must be at almost $100 a barrel for the kingdom to balance its funding of Vision 2030 economic transformation.
—Amira El-Fekki, MSNBC Newsweek, 19 May 2025
Jennifer Berry Hawes, ProPublica, 19 May 2025
The Devils barrels headlong into campy, often overbearing jokiness, with too many catchphrases and one-liners repeated too often that never quite land the way Logen’s do in The First Law, or Glokta’s for that matter.
—Erik Kain, Forbes.com, 17 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for barrel
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
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Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
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Noun
On another morning Woods put a hollow red barrel on the drill and bored into the ice at a refrozen site to extract an ice core about as long and thick as his arm.
—Alec Luhn, Scientific American, 20 May 2025
The International Monetary Fund has estimated that oil must be at almost $100 a barrel for the kingdom to balance its funding of Vision 2030 economic transformation.
—Amira El-Fekki, MSNBC Newsweek, 19 May 2025
Verb
The debris flow had barreled more than a mile down the mountain, leaving an expanse of mud and rocks.
—Jennifer Berry Hawes, ProPublica, 19 May 2025
The Devils barrels headlong into campy, often overbearing jokiness, with too many catchphrases and one-liners repeated too often that never quite land the way Logen’s do in The First Law, or Glokta’s for that matter.
—Erik Kain, Forbes.com, 17 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for barrel
Cite this Entry
“Barrel.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/barrel. Accessed 25 May. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
barrel
2 of 2 verb
barreled or barrelled; barreling or barrelling
: to travel at a high speed
barreling down the highway
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