barb

barb is a 4-letter English word with 19 senses as noun, transitive verb, and verb in the JumbleFix dictionary. One common meaning is: Beard, or that which resembles it, or grows in the place of it. Face value is 8 in Scrabble and 10 in Words With Friends. Use the entries below when you need a playable sense, a nearby word, or another arrangement of the same letters.

4 letters · Scrabble 8 · Words With Friends 10 · 19 senses

Definitions

1. noun. Beard, or that which resembles it, or grows in the place of it.
2. noun. A muffler, worn by nuns and mourners.
3. noun. Paps, or little projections, of the mucous membrane, which mark the opening of the submaxillary glands under the tongue in horses and cattle. The name is mostly applied when the barbs are inflamed and swollen.
4. noun. The point that stands backward in an arrow, fishhook, etc., to prevent it from being easily extracted. Hence: Anything which stands out with a sharp point obliquely or crosswise to something else.
5. noun. A bit for a horse.
6. noun. One of the side branches of a feather, which collectively constitute the vane. See Feather.
7. noun. A southern name for the kingfishes of the eastern and southeastern coasts of the United States; -- also improperly called whiting.
8. noun. A hair or bristle ending in a double hook.
9. transitive verb. To shave or dress the beard of.
10. transitive verb. To clip; to mow.
11. transitive verb. To furnish with barbs, or with that which will hold or hurt like barbs, as an arrow, fishhook, spear, etc.
12. noun. The Barbary horse, a superior breed introduced from Barbary into Spain by the Moors.
13. noun. A blackish or dun variety of the pigeon, originally brought from Barbary.
14. noun. Armor for a horse. Same as 2d Bard, n., 1.
15. noun. one of the parallel filaments projecting from the main shaft of a feather
16. noun. a subsidiary point facing opposite from the main point that makes an arrowhead or spear hard to remove
17. noun. the pointed part of barbed wire
18. noun. an aggressive remark directed at a person like a missile and intended to have a telling effect

    "his parting shot was `drop dead'"

    "she threw shafts of sarcasm"

    Synonyms: dig, gibe, jibe, shaft, shot, slam

19. verb. provide with barbs

    "barbed wire"

Synonyms

dig, gibe, jibe, shaft, shot, slam

Anagrams

Other playable words that use exactly the letters in barb:

abbr, brab

Common word forms

barbs, barbal, barbed, barber, barbes, barbing, barbless

Words from these letters

If you are holding these tiles, the unscrambler for BARB lists every valid word you can make from the same letters, including shorter plays.