barbed wire
noun
Simple meaning
Twisted strands of steel wire, often coated with zinc, having barbs evenly spaced along them.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
bahrbdwyerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbɑɹbdˈwaɪɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Twisted strands of steel wire, often coated with zinc, having barbs evenly spaced along them; used to construct agricultural and military fences.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Twisted strands of steel wire, often coated with zinc, having barbs evenly spaced along them; used to construct agricultural and military fences.
Used this way, barbed wire is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a military use: it belongs to service and operational language.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Military
- Historical writing
- News/reporting
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.