How to Use barb in a Sentence

barb

1 of 2 noun

• Men in the gallery laughed at the barb.
  — Sonja Sharp, Los Angeles Times, 27 Feb. 2026
• No barbs being thrown back and forth.
  — Dane Mizutani, Twin Cities, 19 Sep. 2025
• Paul and Davis have traded public barbs for years.
  — Joseph Wilkinson, New York Daily News, 20 Aug. 2025
• Caruso had a special barb for each of those who came after him.
  — Los Angeles Times, 23 Mar. 2022
• Each gets their own little moment to sling barbs at Sid.
  — Nick Romano, Entertainment Weekly, 27 Feb. 2026
• This same pattern of barbs has been found on porcupine quills.
  — Philip Anderson, The Conversation, 8 July 2026
• His method is to push down the barb below the flesh, loop the shoestring around the hook and yank fast.
  — John Goodspeed, San Antonio Express-News, 24 June 2021
• Its barbs are muddy brown with faint metallic highlights.
  — Douglas Goodwin, The Conversation, 1 June 2026
• Pledges of a united front fade as the booze flows and the barbs get sharper and sharper.
  — Greg Evans, Deadline, 1 June 2026
• In a real feather, the barbs can flash the same blue-green-bronze as the eyespot.
  — Douglas Goodwin, The Conversation, 1 June 2026
• Valle has long tried to work out a fight with Estrada and the two have exchanged barbs.
  — José M. Romero, The Arizona Republic, 31 Jan. 2024
• Zings, barbs, and japes fly between the two, but the banter soon gives way to grand action set pieces.
  — Entertainment Weekly, 10 Mar. 2026
• Gizelle and Stacey continue to throw barbs at each other.
  — Shamira Ibrahim, Vulture, 5 Jan. 2026
• In fairness, even Amorim sidestepped the barbs of Keane.
  — Laurie Whitwell, New York Times, 16 Jan. 2026
• The barbs have come from both sides of the political spectrum.
  — Bloomberg, Mercury News, 8 Jan. 2026
• The battle lines are drawn, the paranoia is growing, and the barbs are flying.
  — Vulture, 2 Mar. 2023
• There appeared to be some more direct barbs aimed at Babyface and his team, too.
  — Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 12 June 2023
• The two Democrats traded barbs over the stadium.
  — Olivia Olander, Chicago Tribune, 22 May 2026
• But the barbs are often partisan.
  — Jonathan Lansner, Oc Register, 12 Sep. 2025
• The two have made barbs at each other publicly during the past few weeks but have yet to meet in person.
  — Kinsey Crowley, USA Today, 21 Nov. 2025
• To eat the nopales, remove the spines (spikes, thorns, or barbs) and use them raw in salads or cooked in soups or tacos.
  — Barbie Cervoni, Verywell Health, 22 Oct. 2025
• The metal barb pushed right through the middle of my ring finger and my middle finger.
  — Sabrina Weiss, PEOPLE, 12 Jan. 2026
• Be sure to cramp down the barb on your hooks to facilitate releasing hooked trout.
  — cleveland, 9 Dec. 2021
• The Joker barb is, no doubt, a reference to being called a clown act.
  — Mark Heim | [email protected], al, 31 Oct. 2022
• What has the season been like for the girl who’s third in the nation in scoring yet hears barbs from players and fans?
  — Don Norcross, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Feb. 2024
• There has been a fierce legal battle, dueling memoirs, and sharp barbs in the press.
  — Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 21 Apr. 2026
• Lee unfazed by Draymond Green’s barb A shrug.
  — Roderick Boone, Charlotte Observer, 21 Jan. 2026
• But with Moe, every barb was delivered with laughter and love.
  — Mike Monroe, San Antonio Express-News, 17 Feb. 2026
• The two have smacked each other around in the weeks since and traded barbs over their places within the company.
  — Ryan Gaydos, FOXNews.com, 9 May 2026
• Her harshest barb riffed on a famous Maybelline mascara ad.
  — ABC News, 24 Apr. 2026

barb

2 of 2 verb

• That’s okay when a lively minnow is barbed through the lips or nostrils, but when fishing cover, baits often pull off quickly.
  — Bob McNally, Field & Stream, 20 Mar. 2023
• And the more official the rules became, the more an underground language—humorous, grotesque, barbed—rose up in protest.
  — Literary Hub, 24 Nov. 2025
• The pup had likely collided with a cholla, and its spines — barbed like fishhooks — were embedded across his face, legs, stomach and paws.
  — Sydney Page, Washington Post, 10 June 2026
• Seth Meyers’ opening day roast will surely be similarly-barbed.
  — Alex Weprin, HollywoodReporter, 11 May 2026
• Eventually two more whole points and fragments of five others turned up, all of them elaborately barbed and polished.
  — James Shreeve, Discover Magazine, 11 Nov. 2019
• Her name is Cleve, and she is played by an exceptional Clare Perkins, whose delivery is barbed and steely.
  — Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
• Foxtails are considered dangerous to pets because they are barbed and can penetrate a dog’s skin, ears, nose, eyes and paws and do not fall out on their own.
  — Ashley MacKin Solomon, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 Mar. 2026
• Dickinson’s line readings are barbed yet beckoning, delivered with wild subtext bubbling just beneath the surface of his speech.
  — Angelica Jade Bastién, Vulture, 25 Apr. 2025
• Every accommodating smile feels barbed, every curtsy an attack, every look of serene placidity a mask.
  — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 6 Sep. 2024
• With some barbed back and forth with prosecutors, the lawyers also asked for, and were granted a quick preliminary evidentiary hearing.
  — Dominic Patten, Deadline, 22 Apr. 2026
• The landscape around it lay newly barbed with cannon, mortars, and bombproof shelters, these installed by hundreds of captive workers whose labor was donated by their Charleston owners.
  — CBS News, 26 Apr. 2024
• His take on the professional star whisperer, ready to drop everything for his client in a nanosecond and able to coax him out of funks via endless distractions, is neither cloyingly affectionate nor barbed.
  — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 13 Nov. 2025
• Hammel is an appealing screen presence, tossing off inappropriate remarks with blithe abandon and making Karla the sort of friend who’s both endearing and exasperating — her affection often barbed and her opportunism unapologetic.
  — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019