Definitions for barbs

• Definition
• Anagrams (43)

barbs barb

Spelling: [bahrb]

IPA: /bɑrb/

Barbs is a 5 letter English word. It's valid Scrabble word worth 9 points. It's valid Words with friends word worth 11 points.

You can make 43 anagrams from letters in barbs (abbrs).

Definitions for barbs

noun

1. a point or pointed part projecting backward from a main point, as of a fishhook or arrowhead.
2. an obviously or openly unpleasant or carping remark.
3. Botany, Zoology. a hooked or sharp bristle.
4. Ornithology. one of the processes attached to the rachis of a feather.
5. one of a breed of domestic pigeons, similar to the carriers or homers, having a short, broad bill.
6. any of numerous, small, Old World cyprinid fishes of the genera Barbus and Puntius, often kept in aquariums.
7. Usually, barbs. Veterinary Pathology. a small protuberance under the tongue in horses and cattle, especially when inflamed and swollen.
8. Also, barbe. a linen covering for the throat and breast, formerly worn by women mourners and now only by some nuns.
9. Obsolete. a beard.
10. one of a breed of horses raised originally in Barbary.
11. barbiturate.

verb (used with object)

1. to furnish with a barb or barbs.

Origin of barbs

1300-50; Middle English barbe Middle French ≪ Latin barba beard or beardlike projection

Examples for barbs

Even on the events (all too rare) when Jackson or Lopez (never Tyler) venture into criticism, the barbs barely break the flesh.

With hooks, barbs, and glands they cling to the covering of animals.

The barbs carried the harpoon through the air like the wings of a bird.

Caught in the barbs of the wire, wedged in, the bodies hung suspended.

Male water striders are clearly adapted for marathon sex: they have hooks and barbs to keep them attached to females.

Tyson gave his roast in the form of iconic poetry, drawing on The Iliad, Shakespeare, and Emily Dickinson to deliver his barbs.

Rather than trying to craft your own Bisset barbs, you can just impress your friends with these Twitter zingers.

Cain kept insisting the barbs were “apples and oranges,” turning his answers into fruit salad.

Afterward the Cave-men fished with harpoons which had barbs on only one side.

Then it seemed as if the barbs had caught in its clothing and held it there.