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Glite Dictionary
🪝 To add sharp points 🪝 A sharp point 💬 A hurtful remark 🪶 A feather strand
barb

barb

30 5.7
A sharp point facing backward on an arrow, hook, or wire that stops things from coming out
  • noun
  • /bɑrb/
translation icon : púa
  • The fisherman carefully examined the hook to ensure the barb was sharp enough to catch a fish.
  • a barb for use

And this gets tricky because they are such straight arrows with very painful barbs.

Examples

  • Fishermen used hooks without barbs so they could unhook fish quickly.

    Academic text (1990)

  • On the Western Front, the British attack at Neuf Chapelle, but the advance is soon halted by German barbed wire and machine guns.

  • All hooks had a typical single barb on the point.

    Academic text (1998)

  • So you can see these are half inch barbs and they are not removable.

  • But the problem was to come up with something to use on the broken blasted ground, the deep trenches, and the barbed wire of the Western Front.

  • She quickly patched the fence after her dog got caught on the barb of the wire.

  • He felt the sharp barb of the arrowhead as he retrieved it from the target.

Synonyms

tine
vsbarb
6 8.1

A sharp point on a fork, pitchfork, or antler

points backward to resist removal and catch or hold

How Sharp

stinger
11 4.4
needle
438 1.0
barb
30 5.7
point
550 1.0
to prong
18 5.3

Surface Forms

barb singular
barbs plural

Etymology

Barb comes from the old Latin word barba, which means 'beard'. Small sharp points on arrows and hooks were seen like little 'beards' that stop something from coming out, so a barb is a backward-facing point that holds things in place.