BARBED

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does barbed mean? 

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

1. capable of wounding

2. having or covered with protective barbs or quills or spines or thorns or setae etc.

  Familiarity information: BARBED used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BARBED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Capable of wounding

Synonyms:

barbed; biting; mordacious; nipping; pungent

Context example:

pungent satire

Similar:

sarcastic (expressing or expressive of ridicule that wounds)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Having or covered with protective barbs or quills or spines or thorns or setae etc.

Synonyms:

barbed; barbellate; briary; briery; bristled; bristly; burred; burry; prickly; setaceous; setose; spiny; thorny

Context example:

setaceous whiskers

Similar:

armed ((used of plants and animals) furnished with bristles and thorns)

 Context examples 

It was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when I tried to extract it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it farther in.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Those who saw him go noted that he carried his bow, with a goodly supply of bone-barbed arrows, and that across his shoulder was his father's big hunting-spear.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Negore was armed with a miserable bone-barbed spear, and he kept his rabbit-skin robe wrapped closely about him, and though the day was warm he shivered as with an ague.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people but always with indiscernible barbed wire between.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)