BARBARIC

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does barbaric mean? 

• BARBARIC (adjective)
  The adjective BARBARIC has 2 senses:

1. without civilizing influences

2. unrestrained and crudely rich

  Familiarity information: BARBARIC used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BARBARIC (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Without civilizing influences

Synonyms:

barbarian; barbaric; savage; uncivilised; uncivilized; wild

Context example:

wild tribes

Similar:

noncivilised; noncivilized (not having a high state of culture and social development)

Derivation:

barbarity (a brutal barbarous savage act)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Unrestrained and crudely rich

Context example:

barbaric use of color or ornament

Similar:

tasteless (lacking aesthetic or social taste)

 Context examples 

I followed him through the strangest succession of rooms, full of curious barbaric splendour which impressed me as being very rich and wonderful, though perhaps I should think differently now.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He entered strange ports of sun-washed lands, and trod market-places among barbaric peoples that no man had ever seen.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Boots which extended halfway up his calves, and which were trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur, completed the impression of barbaric opulence which was suggested by his whole appearance.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I noted Oofty-Oofty, holding the end of a bandage and looking upon the scene, his velvety and luminous eyes glistening in the light like a deer’s eyes, and yet I knew the barbaric devil that lurked in his breast and belied all the softness and tenderness, almost womanly, of his face and form.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He likened himself to a poet, wrecked on the shores of a strange land, filled with power of beauty, stumbling and stammering and vainly trying to sing in the rough, barbaric tongue of his brethren in the new land.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The hulk of an ancient wreck burned with blue fires, in the light of which danced the hula dancers to the barbaric love- calls of the singers, who chanted to tinkling ukuleles and rumbling tom- toms.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)