barter

bar·ter | \ ˈbär-tər

bartered; bartering; barters

Definition of barter

(Entry 1 of 2)

: to trade by exchanging one commodity for another : to trade goods or services in exchange for other goods or services farmers bartering for supplies with their crops bartered with the store's owner

transitive verb

: to trade or exchange by or as if by bartering bartering work for food

barter

noun

Definition of barter (Entry 2 of 2)

1 : the act or practice of trading goods or services for other goods or services : the act or practice of carrying on trade by bartering

2 : goods or services that are traded for other goods or services : the thing given in exchange in bartering

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Examples of barter in a Sentence

Noun The tribes use a system of barter. The explorers used blankets and other supplies for barter to get food from the native people.

Recent Examples on the Web: Verb Finding her place in urban farming, Sandra White has a dream to one day build a network in which people don't have to survive solely on money but can barter and trade. — Kyla L. Wright, Detroit Free Press, "Awards recognize 7 Detroit women who are leaders in their neighborhoods," 5 Oct. 2020 Unstable structures barter and swap atoms with one another until all of them, happy with their trades, blissfully settle into more relaxed, lower energy states, like rocks reaching the bottom of a hill. — Rachel Lance, Wired, "The Tragic Physics of the Deadly Explosion in Beirut," 6 Aug. 2020 Instead, influencers on the app have to barter with brands directly to receive money for advertising products. — Eamon Barrett, Fortune, "How Bytedance is trying to consolidate TikTok’s user base in India," 15 June 2020 Using peer-to-peer services to share and barter things, from books and CDs to power tools and cars, never took off. — The Economist, "What’s mine is yours The sharing economy will have to change," 4 June 2020 Iran is delivering some of its unsold oil to Syria in exchange for greater diplomatic influence in the region and bartering its crude-refining technology for gold with Venezuela, according to people close to the three governments. — Benoit Faucon, WSJ, "Iran Leverages Oil to Court Other U.S. Rivals During Pandemic," 12 May 2020 Not much of a veggie gardener, Braun also barters, especially with a friend who grows grade-A ponderosa pink tomatoes. — Paul Bedard, Washington Examiner, "Mike Braun, the Senate’s mushroom hunter," 4 May 2020 Kids come in and barter with each other — or buy more L.O.L. dolls from the store, of course. — Chavie Lieber, New York Times, "How L.O.L. Dolls Became the Dopamine Hit of a Generation," 16 Apr. 2020 Their fellow costar Mario Lopez apparently also wants in on the bartering booze-for-produce business. — Rosy Cordero, EW.com, "Tiffani Thiessen delivers eggs to Saved by the Bell costar Mark-Paul Gosselaar during quarantine," 7 Apr. 2020 Recent Examples on the Web: Noun Having only the most anemic impulses to truck and barter, their sole contact is the irregular exchange of dinners. — Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, "The Capital Note: Going After Google," 20 Oct. 2020 But those mixed flights, including the eventual launch of Russian cosmonauts aboard the new American spacecraft, will be covered by barter arrangements, not direct cash payments. — William Harwood, CBS News, "Soyuz flight to space station sets stage for NASA transition to U.S. crew ships," 13 Oct. 2020 Is this a barter system, or what is the arrangement? — Dalton Ross, EW.com, "The Walking Dead: World Beyond," 5 Oct. 2020 The evolution from barter to money is an old story in economics, repeated down the centuries in one form or another, to the point that even children are aware of it. — Matthew Zeitlin, The New Republic, "How David Graeber Changed the Way We See Money," 4 Sep. 2020 The organization accepted cash, food stamps, meal coupons and barter cards. — oregonlive, "Portland’s Sisters of the Road co-founder Genny Nelson has died, but her legacy of helping those in need continues," 26 Aug. 2020 The majority of the sales are related to barter trading with farmers getting fertilizers and chemicals before planting in exchange for part of the harvest. — Fortune, "Farmers are selling soybeans two years in advance in rare trade," 25 Aug. 2020 That, coupled with strict import laws that protect the island’s biodiversity, have influenced a strong barter culture among small-scale local producers. — National Geographic, "Gordon Ramsay Journeys to Remote Tasmania," 20 May 2020 In a historical sense, cities are always organisms of a kind, like coral reefs, where a lot of people come together to barter spices and exchange ideas and find mates, and endure the recurrent damage of infectious disease. — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, "The Coronavirus Crisis Reveals New York at Its Best and Worst," 23 Mar. 2020

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