Dictionary Thesaurus Word Dynamo Quotes Reference Translator Spanish

barrel

[bar-uhl]

noun

a cylindrical wooden container with slightly bulging sides made of staves hooped together, and with flat, parallel ends.

the quantity that such a vessel of some standard size can hold: for most liquids, 31¹/₂ U.S. gallons (119 L); for petroleum, 42 U.S. gallons (159 L); for dry materials, 105 U.S. dry quarts (115 L). Abbreviation: bbl

any large quantity: a barrel of fun.

any container, case, or part similar to a wooden barrel in form.

Ordnance. the tube of a gun.

EXPAND

Machinery. the chamber of a pump in which the piston works.

a drum turning on a shaft, as in a weight-driven clock.

Horology. the cylindrical case in a watch or clock within which the mainspring is coiled.

Ornithology Obsolete. a calamus or quill.

10.

the trunk of a quadruped, especially of a horse, cow, etc.

11.

Nautical. the main portion of a capstan, about which the rope winds, between the drumhead at the top and the pawl rim at the bottom.

12.

a rotating horizontal cylinder in which manufactured objects are coated or polished by tumbling in a suitable substance.

13.

any structure having the form of a barrel vault.

14.

Also called throat. Automotive. a passageway in a carburetor that has the shape of a Venturi tube.

COLLAPSE

verb (used with object)

15.

to put or pack in a barrel or barrels.

16.

to finish (metal parts) by tumbling in a barrel.

17.

Informal. to force to go or proceed at high speed: He barreled his car through the dense traffic.

:10

:09

:08

:07

:06

:05

:04

:03

:02

:01

Barrel is one of our favorite verbs.

So is fletcherise. Does it mean:

to chew (food) slowly and thoroughly.

to run away hurriedly; flee.

LEARN MORE FUN, UNUSUAL VERBS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

verb (used without object)

18.

Informal. to travel or drive very fast: to barrel along the highway.

Idiom

19.

over a barrel, Informal. in a helpless, weak, or awkward position; unable to act: They really had us over a barrel when they foreclosed the mortgage.

Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English barell < Anglo-French baril, Old French barril < Vulgar Latin *barrīculum, equivalent to *barrīc(a), perhaps derivative of Late Latin barra bar¹ + Latin -ulum -ule; compare Medieval Latin (circa 800) barriclus small cask

Related forms

half-bar·rel, noun

un·bar·reled, adjective

un·bar·relled, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source

Link To barrel

Example Sentences

Pork barrel spending used to mean roads and bridges.

He had pulled an old plastic sled out of the garage and filled it up with water from our rain barrel.

Each of the caps of a vault's barrel is made from a ring of proteins.

EXPAND

Pork barrel spending used to mean roads and bridges.

He had pulled an old plastic sled out of the garage and filled it up with water from our rain barrel.

Each of the caps of a vault's barrel is made from a ring of proteins.

Lift the barrel unit from around the compost and set it beside the current compost heap.

So, preventing the pipeline from being built will not stop a single barrel of oil from being burned.

Give the stars of each bed?such as these barrel cactus?enough room to show off.

Every few days you spin the barrel to stir up the decaying material inside instead of jabbing it with a ptichfork.

Pork barrel spending used to mean roads and bridges and dams.

And some educators question whether students should barrel through college at an accelerated clip, even if they can.

The dollar price per barrel is the dollar price for a barrel regardless if the dollar is rising or falling.

In areas of intermittent precipitation, a rain barrel can be utilized between rainstorms.

To fire it, a cap placed at the middle of the barrel is lit.

When a storm blows in, let it rain for an hour before you divert what's coming down the downspout into your barrel.

The traditional potato gun uses a barrel that is attached to a combustion chamber.

It's either cash on the barrel or electronic transfers between bank accounts.

Next time it rains, think about how much water you could be collecting in a rain barrel.

It's not an airliner contrail-unless the airliner was doing barrel rolls.

Both flowers and bruised leaves have fragrance of an old wine barrel.

X-Flight is a wing coaster that has riders performing flight maneuvers such as barrel rolls and zero-g rolls.

Like taking an overdose if female, or eating a gun barrel is male.

The barrel shaped drums or barriles are covered with tightly stretched skins and played by hand.

It's good that this happened because the only rotten apple in the barrel has been exposed.

We're talking one tomato or one zucchini per barrel.

The pump underneath the barrel is primed for ripping out a whole bunch of discs.

We bend to the task and at last free the barrel from the muck.

We evolved to see and respond to dangers that barrel down on us at speed.

It would be great fun to do barrel samples with readers and have more hands when bottling.

Under a microscope the samples were clearly the same black barrel shapes.

Fish glide past barrel sponges on a coral reef in an undated photo.

The cost of all this in money and lives puts the total cost per barrel at an unbearable, prohibitive rate.

Not only that, but the skeleton of the barrel can be used to create a shelter.

He rolls the yellow reed shaft in the ashes, then squints down its barrel and straightens it.

Now they've got an entire industry bent over the barrel and can screw everyone coming and going.

The barrel is rifled cro-moly with a carbon outer, and you can buy an optional laser sight.

They use a bat to break open a hanging barrel filled with all kinds of goodies.

The company says that families would save a barrel of cash in the long run.

Malamud's magic barrel of schnorrers and schleppers is re-tapped in his collected stories.

Bishop out of the room after staring down the barrel of a gun.

Equally unusual, a single barrel fires at a rate equivalent to one million rounds per minute.

Emick was thrown out and a barrel of apples and other articles in the buggy were scattered along the road.

After cutting four small slits in the end of the pen's barrel to ease it in, the lock opened with a single twist.

Soon the barrel smolders and glows, but it does not droop and does not rupture.

He also kept explosives, to blow the legs off pool tables or to pack in a barrel for target practice.

The landscape footprint per barrel of oil of in situ is lower than.

The metal barrel is hidden inside the guitar's warm wooden neck and can never fire another shot.

Most pencil barrels are made from cedar slats, but the barrel of the new.

The easiest way to see the thundering falls up close isn't in a barrel.

The potato is tamped into the barrel until it is close to the chamber.

They seem to get the scraps from the bottom of the barrel when it comes to money.

Rotating barrel units take only a minute to turn a couple of times per week.

It should be close to the cost of the the next incremental barrel extracted at the higher cost sites.

It is of little use to extract a barrel of oil equivalent if it takes a barrel of oil equivalent to do.

The grooves and striations it picks up as it blasts down a gun barrel can link weapons to crimes and help.

If you take a look at the image above, you'll notice multiple nozzles at the end of the barrel.

They barrel roll when they hit a rich patch, somersaulting backward to stay in the hot spot.

Maxim's other innovation was the introduction of a water-cooling system to reduce barrel overheating during extended firing.

The sewer's barrel vault clearly reaches into the darkness beyond-one wonders how far.

One of the security men pulled a gun and began to screw a silencer to the barrel.

Heartline twist-and-dive roller coaster simulates a jet fighter's barrel roll.

Its barrel was too short to achieve the range of standard infantry rifles.

Women and girls participate in separate rodeo categories, including barrel racing and calf breakaway.

The barrel was a new type incorporating tungsten alloy, and particles were picked up by the wine.

It's to affix an oscillator to an existing one, much as you'd attach a silencer to the barrel of a gun.

Each barrel could only fire once, hence the need for six separate barrels and the weapon's chubby profile.

Take the iSight, slide a roll of insulating tape around the barrel and then slide the lens on top.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

barrel (ˈbærəl)

—n
1.	a cylindrical container usually bulging outwards in the middle and held together by metal hoops; cask
2.	Also called: barrelful the amount that a barrel can hold
3.	a unit of capacity used in brewing, equal to 36 Imperial gallons
4.	a unit of capacity used in the oil and other industries, normally equal to 42 US gallons or 35 Imperial gallons
5.	a thing or part shaped like a barrel, esp a tubular part of a machine
6.	the tube through which the projectile of a firearm is discharged
7.	horology the cylindrical drum in a watch or clock that is rotated by the mainspring
8.	the trunk of a four-legged animal: the barrel of a horse
9.	the quill of a feather
10.	informal a large measure; a great deal (esp in the phrases barrel of fun, barrel of laughs)
11.	informal (Austral) the hollow inner side of a wave
12.	informal over a barrel powerless
13.	informal scrape the barrel to be forced to use one's last and weakest resource

—vb , -rels, -relling, -relled, -rels, -reling, -reled
14.	(tr) to put into a barrel or barrels
15.	informal (intr; foll by along, in, etc), (intr) to travel or move very fast
16.	informal (Austral) to ride on the inside of a wave

[C14: from Old French baril perhaps from barrebar¹]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

barrel

c.1300, from O.Fr. baril (12c.) "barrel, cask, vat," with cognates in all Romance languages (cf. It. barile, Sp. barril), but origin uncertain; perhaps from Gaulish, perhaps somehow related to bar (1). Meaning "metal tube of a gun" is from 1640s. The verb meaning "to move quickly"

EXPAND

is 1930, Amer.Eng. slang, perhaps suggestive of a rolling barrel.

COLLAPSE

Slang Dictionary

barrel definition

tv. & in.
to drink liquor to excess. : Stop barreling beer and let's go home.

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source

Easton

Bible Dictionary

Barrel definition

a vessel used for keeping flour (1 Kings 17:12, 14, 16). The same word (cad) so rendered is also translated "pitcher," a vessel for carrying water (Gen. 24:14; Judg. 7:16).

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
Cite This Source

American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

barrel

see both barrels; bottom of the barrel; cash on the barrelhead; like shooting fish in a barrel; lock, stock, and barrel; more fun than a barrel of monkeys; over a barrel; pork barrel; rotten apple (spoils the barrel).

Encyclopedia Britannica

Encyclopedia

barrel

large, bulging cylindrical container of sturdy construction traditionally made from wooden staves and wooden or metal hoops. The term is also a unit of volume measure, specifically 31 gallons of a fermented or distilled beverage, or 42 gallons of a petroleum product. According to the 1st-century-AD Roman historian Pliny the Elder, the ancient craft of barrel making, also called cooperage, was invented by the inhabitants of the Alpine valleys.

Learn more about barrel with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
Cite This Source

Partners:Word Bloglines Citysearch The Daily Beast Ask Answers Ask Kids Life123 Sendori Thesaurus

About Privacy Policy Terms of Use API Careers Advertise with Us Contact Us Help