BARBARY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Barbary mean? 

• BARBARY (noun)
  The noun BARBARY has 1 sense:

1. a region of northern Africa on the Mediterranean coast between Egypt and Gibraltar; was used as a base for pirates from the 16th to 19th centuries

  Familiarity information: BARBARY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BARBARY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A region of northern Africa on the Mediterranean coast between Egypt and Gibraltar; was used as a base for pirates from the 16th to 19th centuries

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Instance hypernyms:

geographic area; geographic region; geographical area; geographical region (a demarcated area of the Earth)

Meronyms (parts of "Barbary"):

Barbary Coast (the Mediterranean coast of northern Africa that was famous for its Moorish pirates)

Holonyms ("Barbary" is a part of...):

Africa (the second largest continent; located to the south of Europe and bordered to the west by the South Atlantic and to the east by the Indian Ocean)

 Context examples 

Take a Goth, a Hun, and a Vandal, mix them together and add a Barbary rover; then take this creature and make him drunk—and you have an Englishman.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Salt junk and weevilly biscuits, with a rib of a tough Barbary ox when the tenders come in. You would have your spare diet there, sir.”

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But if he trended to the south he might reach Spain and the Barbary States.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

On their journey home through the woods Alleyne learnt their wondrous story: how, when Sir Nigel came to his senses, he with his fellow-captive had been hurried to the coast, and conveyed by sea to their captor's castle; how upon the way they had been taken by a Barbary rover, and how they exchanged their light captivity for a seat on a galley bench and hard labor at the pirate's oars; how, in the port at Barbary, Sir Nigel had slain the Moorish captain, and had swum with Aylward to a small coaster which they had taken, and so made their way to England with a rich cargo to reward them for their toils.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In heavy clusters they hung upon the forecastle all ready for a spring—faces white, faces brown, faces yellow, and faces black, fair Norsemen, swarthy Italians, fierce rovers from the Levant, and fiery Moors from the Barbary States, of all hues and countries, and marked solely by the common stamp of a wild-beast ferocity.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I tell you, sir, that my ship is over light and over frail for such work, and it will but end in our having our throats cut, or being sold as slaves to the Barbary heathen.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A few days later he took him to Duluth and bought him a blue coat, six pair of white duck trousers and a yachting cap. And when the Tuolomee left for the West Indies and the Barbary Coast Gatsby left too.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)