What does barrier mean?

Definitions for barrier
ˈbær i ərbar·ri·er

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word barrier.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. barriernoun

    a structure or object that impedes free movement

  2. barrier, roadblocknoun

    any condition that makes it difficult to make progress or to achieve an objective

    "intolerance is a barrier to understanding"

  3. barriernoun

    anything serving to maintain separation by obstructing vision or access

Wiktionary

  1. barriernoun

    A structure that bars passage.

  2. barriernoun

    An obstacle or impediment.

  3. barriernoun

    A boundary or limit.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

  1. Barriernoun

    Etymology: barriere, Fr.

    Safe in the love of heav’n an ocean flows
    Around our realm, a barrier from the foes. Alexander Pope, Odyssey.

    The queen is under the obligation of being guarantee of the Dutch having possession of the said barrier, and the revenues thereof, before a peace. Jonathan Swift.

    If you value yourself as a man of learning, you are building a most unpassable barrier against all improvement. Isaac Watts, Improvement of the Mind.

    For justs, and tourneys, and barriers, the glories of them are chiefly in the chariots, wherein the challengers make their entries. Francis Bacon, Essays.

    Pris’ners to the pillar bound,
    At either barrier plac’d; nor, captives made,
    Be freed, or arm’d anew. John Dryden, Fables.

    But wave whate’er to Cadmus may belong,
    And fix, O muse, the barrier of thy song,
    At Oedipus. Alexander Pope, Statius.

    How instinct varies in the groveling swine,
    Compar’d, half reas’ning elephant! with thine:
    ’Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier!
    For ever sep’rate, yet for ever near. Alexander Pope, Essay on Man.

ChatGPT

  1. barrier

    A barrier is a physical or symbolic structure or obstacle that restricts or prevents movement or access. This could include both tangible barriers like walls and fences, and intangible barriers such as social conditions or regulations. It can also refer to anything that prevents progress or achievement.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Barriernoun

    a carpentry obstruction, stockade, or other obstacle made in a passage in order to stop an enemy

  2. Barriernoun

    a fortress or fortified town, on the frontier of a country, commanding an avenue of approach

  3. Barriernoun

    a fence or railing to mark the limits of a place, or to keep back a crowd

  4. Barriernoun

    an any obstruction; anything which hinders approach or attack

  5. Barriernoun

    any limit or boundary; a line of separation

Wikidata

  1. Barrier

    In parallel computing, a barrier is a type of synchronization method. A barrier for a group of threads or processes in the source code means any thread/process must stop at this point and cannot proceed until all other threads/processes reach this barrier. Many collective routines and directive-based parallel languages impose implicit barriers. For example, a parallel do loop in Fortran with OpenMP will not be allowed to continue on any thread until the last iteration is completed. This is in case the program relies on the result of the loop immediately after its completion. In message passing, any global communication may imply a barrier. Classic barrier constructs define the set of participating processes/threads statically. This is usually done either at program startup or when a barrier like the Pthreads barrier is instantiated. This restricts the possible applications for which barriers can be used. To support more dynamic programming paradigms like fork/join parallelism, the sets of participants have to be dynamic. Thus, the set of processes/threads participating in a barrier operation needs to be able to change over time. X10 introduced the concept of clocks for that purpose, which provide a dynamic barrier semantic. Building on clocks, phasers have been proposed to add even more flexibility to barrier synchronization. With phasers it is possible to express data dependencies between the participating processes explicitly to avoid unnecessary over-synchronization.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Barrier

    bar′i-ėr, n. a defence against attack: a limit or boundary: a fence, railing, gate where customs are collected: the lists in a tournament: any obstacle that keeps apart: (pl.) a martial exercise in 15th and 16th centuries.—v.t. to shut by means of a barrier.—n. Bar′rier-reef, a coral-reef surrounding an island or fringing a coast with a navigable channel inside.—Barrier Act, an act passed by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1697 as a security against innovations, decreeing that changes in the law of the Church, even when approved by the Assembly, shall not become law till approved also by a majority of presbyteries. [O. Fr. barrière—Low L. barrariabarra, bar.]

Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

  1. barrier

    A coordinated series of obstacles designed or employed to channel, direct, restrict, delay, or stop the movement of an opposing force and to impose additional losses in personnel, time, and equipment on the opposing force. Barriers can exist naturally, be man-made, or a combination of both.

Military Dictionary and Gazetteer

  1. barrier

    In a general sense means any fortification or strong place on the frontiers of a country. It is likewise a kind of fence composed of stakes and transoms, as over-thwart rafters, erected to defend the entrance of a passage, retrenchment, or the like. In the middle of the barrier is a movable bar of wood, which is opened or shut at pleasure. It also implies a gate made of wooden bars, about 5 feet long, perpendicular to the horizon, and kept together by two long bars going across and another crossing diagonally. Barriers are used to stop the cut made through the esplanade before the gate of a town.

Surnames Frequency by Census Records

  1. BARRIER

    According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Barrier is ranked #10657 in terms of the most common surnames in America.

    The Barrier surname appeared 3,002 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 1 would have the surname Barrier.

    88.1% or 2,646 total occurrences were White.
    6.9% or 207 total occurrences were Black.
    2.3% or 71 total occurrences were of Hispanic origin.
    1.8% or 56 total occurrences were of two or more races.
    0.3% or 11 total occurrences were Asian.
    0.3% or 11 total occurrences were American Indian or Alaskan Native.

British National Corpus

  1. Nouns Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'barrier' in Nouns Frequency: #1373

Usage in printed sourcesFrom: 

How to pronounce barrier?

How to say barrier in sign language?

Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of barrier in Chaldean Numerology is: 6

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of barrier in Pythagorean Numerology is: 8

Examples of barrier in a Sentence

  1. Angelino Alfano:

    We worked to save the right to circulate at Brenner, to clarify issues and avoid a crisis with Austria, there's no need for any kind of barrier at Brenner.

  2. Eli Goldstein:

    New technologies like radiative cooling are often more expensive, people are very sensitive to first cost, and so that is another barrier to getting new things out there.

  3. Secoriea Turner:

    They say Black Lives Matter. You killed your own, they killed my baby because he crossed a barrier and made a U-turn ? You killed a child. She didnt do nothing to nobody. Black Lives Matter ? You killing youre own. You killed an 8-year-old child. She aint did nothing to no one of yall. She just wanted to get home to see her cousin. Thats all she wanted to do.

  4. Erik Pevernagie:

    A doorway is an ambiguous phenomenon, a liminal spot in a person’s life. A door can be a choice, a possibility, a protection or an aperture to new-fangled values. It can mean a barrier, a prison or a gate to freedom. It can, however, vanish in the mist of unawareness by lack of social concern. At that moment, our freedom has become our jail and we feel locked up in our own liberty. Any exit has waned: the doorway has been absorbed in the stupor of our infatuation. ( “In the doorway” )

  5. John Kelly:

    To be honest, it's not a wall, the president still says' wall' — oftentimes frankly he'll say' barrier' or' fencing,' now he's tended toward steel slats. But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

barrier#1#7079#10000

Translations for barrier

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"barrier." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 19 Jan. 2025. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/barrier>.

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