bare – English adjective declension

English adjective forms of bare

Adjective: bare

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparativebarer
Superlativebarest

Perifrastic

Sample Sentences

  • a bare majority
  • Nature indeed furnishes us with the bare necessaries of life, but traffic gives us a great variety of what is useful [1711 May 29 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “FRIDAY, May 19, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 69; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:]
  • "I refuse to show myself out of doors in my bare feet," the Centipede said. "I have to get my boots on again first." [1961, Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach, Knopf, page 46:]
  • a room bare of furniture
  • The cupboard was bare.
  • Localities across New Jersey imposed curfews to prevent looting. In Monmouth, Ocean and other counties, people waited for hours for gasoline at the few stations that had electricity. Supermarket shelves were stripped bare. [2012 October 31, David M. Halbfinger, New York Times, retrieved 31 Oct 2012:]
  • The walls of this room are bare — why not hang some paintings on them?
  • The trees were left bare after the swarm of locusts devoured all the leaves.
  • It's taking bare time.
  • The phone would answer, we'd go round the corner, pass something to someone, go back and we'd have bare dough, we'd have bare money in our pocket. [2005 July 13, Ryan, quotee, “‘We like the easy money. We like the lifestyle’”, in The Guardian:]
  • You shagged bare lads, you're a little sket / Have you heard your bars? They're fucking pept [2016 December 3, Millie B, “Soph Aspin Send”, performed by Millie B:]
  • Oh, come on. Help a brother out. People see you coppin', might inspire them. Look, I know you ain't payin' bills right now. Man must have bare peas saved up. [2023, Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia, directed by Raine Allen-Miller, Rye Lane, spoken by Nathan (Simon Manyonda):]
  • When once thy foot enters the church, be bare. / God is more there, then thou: for thou art there / Onely by his permiſſion. [[1633], George Herbert, “The Church-porch”, in [Nicholas Ferrar], editor, The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green, […], →OCLC, page 14:]
  • Bare in thy guilt how foul muſt thou appear? [1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […].”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 56, line 903:]
  • bare essentials; bare necessities
  • Those who lent him money lent it on no security but his bare word. [1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, Chapter XII:]
  • for it appears, by their bare liveries, that they live by your bare words. [c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]:]
  • Before the company was formed, the firm went bare for about three months in 1985, but it now has prior acts coverage for that time. [1987 December 1, ABA Journal, page 86:]
  • That a firm chooses to go bare has no effect on whether it gets sued or not. [1994, David S. Haviland, The Architect's Handbook of Professional Practice, page 310:]

Adjectives inflected like bare

scarce, smoove, sombre, wholsome, sheene, bolshie, baroque, concrete, seveare, comf'table, shrewde, 'umble, grislie, unsubtle, ungentle, indiscrete, couthie, chavvie, lissome, cutesie, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)

Etymology

1. From Middle English bare, bar, from Old English bær (“bare, naked, open”), from Proto-West Germanic *baʀ, from Proto-Germanic *bazaz (“bare, naked”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰosós, from *bʰos- (“bare, barefoot”).
2. Cognate with Scots bare, bair (“bare”), Saterland Frisian bar (“bare”), West Frisian baar (“bare”), Dutch bar (“bare”), German bar (“bare”), Swedish bar (“bare”), Icelandic ber (“bare”), Lithuanian basas (“barefoot, bare”), Polish bosy (“barefoot”). See: Dutch Adjectives 'bar', German Adjectives 'bar', Swedish Adjectives 'bar', Polish Adjectives 'bosy'.

Verbs referencing "bare"

English Adjectives barren, French Adjectives bréhaigne.