barter
noun · verb
Simple meaning
An exchange of goods or services without the use of money.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
bahrterSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbɑɹtɚ
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
An exchange of goods or services without the use of money.
The goods or services used in such an exchange.
An equal exchange
“We had no money so we had to live by barter.”
verb
ambitransitive
To exchange goods or services without involving money.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An exchange of goods or services without the use of money.
Used this way, barter is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use barter
- “We had no money so we had to live by barter.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A member of the British order of honor.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Trade in in a bartering transaction.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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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.