Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definitions: Barber |
BarberNoun1. A hairdresser who cuts hair and shaves beards as a trade. Verb1. Perform the services of a barber: cut the hair and/or beard of. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "barber" was first used: 13th century. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
19th Century Satire | A brilliant conversationalist, who occasionally shaves and cuts hair. Syn. for Phonograph. Source: Foolish Dictionary, 1904. |
Bible | Barber Found only once, in Ezek. 5:1, where reference is made to the Jewish custom of shaving the head as a sign of mourning. The Nazarites were untouched by the razor from their birth (Num. 6:5). Comp. Judg. 16:19. Source: Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary. |
Literature | Barber Every barber knows that "Omnibus notum tonsoribus." Horace: 1 Satires, VII. 3. In Rome the tonstrinæ or barbers' shops were the fashionable resort of loungers and idlers. Here every scandal was known, and all the talk of the town was repeated. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Occupations | Provides customers with barbering services: Cuts, shapes, trims, and tapers hair, using clippers, comb, blow-out gun, and scissors. Applies lather and shaves beard or shapes hair contour (outline) on temple and neck, using razor. Performs other tonsorial services, such as applying hairdressings or lotions, dyeing, shampooing, singeing, or styling hair, and massaging face, neck, or scalp. Records service charge on ticket or receives payment. Cleans work area and work tools. Orders supplies. May sell lotions, tonics, or other cosmetic supplies. (references) |
Personal Care & Hotels | A person whose occupation is that of shaving, trimming, and dressing the hair. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
In some countries, barbers hang out a pole with helical stripes; the red stripe represents the blood of surgery.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Barber."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Wind | Gust, blast, squall, gale, half a gale, storm, tempest, hurricane, whirlwind, tornado, samiel, cyclone, anticyclone, typhoon; simoon, simoom; harmattan, monsoon, trade wind, sirocco, mistral, bise, tramontane, levanter; capful of wind; fresh breeze, stiff breeze; keen blast; blizzard, barber, candelia, chinook, foehn, khamsin, norther, vendaval, wuther. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Barber |
| English words defined with "barber": barber chair, Barber fish, Barbered, Barbering ♦ cut, cutting, cutting off ♦ job ♦ Poller ♦ Sweeney Todd ♦ Todd, Tonsor. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "barber": ARTIST ♦ BARBER APPRENTICE, Barber Poet, Barber Pole, Barbier ♦ Diable, DIE BARBER, dispensary attendant, DOG BATHER ♦ Great Men ♦ LION, LOCK ASSEMBLER ♦ Mambrino's Helmet, Mirror of Knighthood ♦ Russell's Paradox ♦ SEVILLE, SHAMPOO, Striations, SUPPLY CLERK ♦ WIG DRESSER. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "barber": Poller ♦ tonsorial. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | There's always barber college. (Road House; writing credit: David Lee Henry) And it's not that he didn't want to rape the environment and exploit the workers, I'm sure he did. It's just that as a barber, he didn't have that much opportunity! (All of Me; writing credit: Edwin Davis; Phil Alden Robinson) I'm the Barber of Seville! (Our Gang Follies of 1938; writing credit: H.T. Bishop; Gerald Elliott) Well, I don't want to spend the rest of my life working in a barber shop. (Hands Across the Table; writing credit: Via Delmar; Norman Krasna) | |
Clever | I wanted to be a barber, but I just couldn't cut it. (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Den Meget talende barber (1974) The Barber of Stamford Hill (1962) Barber Shop Ballads (1945) The Barber Shop (1933) Busy Barber (1932) | |
Song Titles | Down At the Barber Shop (performing artist: The Wombles) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
References |
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Theater & Movies |
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Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
![]() | A trip to the royal barber - all Pollywogs must profess a love of Shellbacks A 1985 crossing of the line on the MALCOLM BALDRIGE.Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection. | ![]() | Trinette Bell (right), NRCS Soil Conservationist, assists Maeola Barber (left) with fencing around a livestock area. [Slide 97CS3131].Credit: Bob Nichols. |
![]() | A. E. Barber, M.D.Credit: National Library of Medicine. | ![]() | U. S. Army Base Hospital Number 17, Dijon, France. : Barber shop.Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
![]() | U.S. American National Red Cross Hospital No. 5, Auteuil, France. : Patients at an open air barber shop outside of one of the tents.Credit: National Library of Medicine. | ![]() | [Woman being bled by a barber surgeon].Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
![]() | [A barber shop at the front, Gungalin].Credit: National Library of Medicine. | ![]() | [Interior scene of a barber treating a man's foot] : [Surgery] / [A.] Brower pinxot Corn. Visscher fecit.Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Play | Caption |
| Clippers; hair; clip; clipping; cutting; cut; Army; Navy; Marines; barber; shave; trim; sideburns. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | This barber had made him aggressive. |
Gulliver's Travels | Swift, Jonathan | In another, a barber, an abbot, and two cardinals. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | Some of the international companies represented in the Saudi market include Caterpillar, Barber Green, Pettibone, Dresser Industries, Liebherr, Euclid, Atlas-Copco, GMC, Ingersoll-Rand, Wabco, Komatsu, Hitachi and Samsung. (references) | |
Economic History | Ghana | The GIPC law specifies areas of investment reserved for Ghanaians, namely, petty trading, operation of taxi services (except when a non-Ghanaian has a minimum fleet of 10 vehicles), pool betting businesses and lotteries (except soccer pools), beauty salons and barber shops. (references) |
Political Economy | GHANA | Services Barriers: The Ghanaian investment code proscribes foreign participation in the following sectors: small-scale wholesale and retail sales, taxi and car rental services with fleets of fewer than ten vehicles, lotteries, and barber and beauty shops. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Rush Limbaugh | In the eighties, Taylor had a twice-weekly segment on a Denver television station, and the clip shown in an ad run by Democrats shows Taylor applying lotions to the face of a man sitting in the barber chair with Taylor discussing techniques. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Barber" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 58.57% of the time. "Barber" is used about 321 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 58.57% | 188 | 22,417 |
| Noun (proper) | 41.43% | 133 | 27,614 |
| Total | 100.00% | 321 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "barber" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Barber | Last name | 32,000 | 335 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
Expressions using "barber": barber bug fever ♦ barber chair ♦ barber chirurgeon ♦ barber County ♦ Barber fish ♦ barber pole ♦ barber shop ♦ Barber Surgeons ♦ barber surgery. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "barber": Barber-lomax, barber-shop, barber-style, barber-surgeon, barber-surgeons. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
barber | 687 |
barber shop | 457 |
barber supply | 277 |
barber beauty school | 230 |
barber school | 198 |
barber chair | 187 |
skip barber | 119 |
barber of seville | 113 |
barber colman | 111 |
andrea barber | 102 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "barber"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaan | haarkapper (hairdresser), barbier. (various references) | |
Albanian | berber (coiffeur, hairdresser, shaver). (various references) | |
Arabic | حلق ل, حلاق (coiffure, stylist). (various references) | |
Asturian | barberu. (various references) | |
Bemba | kabeya wa mushishi. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | бръснар. (various references) | |
Catalan | perruquer (hairdresser). (various references) | |
Cebuano | barbero. (various references) | |
Chamorro | batberu. (various references) | |
Chinese | 理髮師 , 理发师. (various references) | |
Cornish | barver. (various references) | |
Czech | holiè (hairdresser). (various references) | |
Danish | frisør (hairdresser). (various references) | |
Dutch | kapper (Borneo camphorwood, camphorwood, caper, capur, cutter, hairdresser, kapur), barbier. (various references) | |
Ecuadorian Quechua | agchacuchuc. (various references) | |
Esperanto | barbisto, barbiro, razisto, frizisto (hairdresser). (various references) | |
Faeroese | hárskeri. (various references) | |
Farsi | سلمانی کردن , سلمانی شدن , سلمانی (Haircut, Shaver). (various references) | |
Finnish | parturi. (various references) | |
French | coiffeur, barbier. (various references) | |
Frisian | hierknipper (hairdresser). (various references) | |
German | Friseur (coiffeur, haircutter, hairdresser, hair-dresser, stylist), Herrenfriseur (men's hairdresser), barbier (shaver). (various references) | |
Greek | κουρέασ. (various references) | |
Hebrew | 'לב. (various references) | |
Hungarian | fodrász (coiffeur, hairdresser), borbély (flash-house), férfi fodrász. (various references) | |
Indonesian | barbir, tukang cukur, pemangkas (cutter). (various references) | |
Inuktitut | nujaijaqti. (various references) | |
Italian | parrucchiere (hair dresser, haircutter, hairdresser, stylist), barbiere (haircutter, men's hairdresser). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 髪床 (barbershop), 理髪師 , 理容師 , 床屋 , ハ長調 (bar, bar code, barbarism, barbecue, barbell, barell, bargain, bargain sale, bargaining power, bartender, barter, base, Bayer, BBQ, Berkeley, berkelium, Berkley, Bermuda shorts, Bermuda Triangle, berth, bias, biathlon, bio, bio music, biochip, biocomputer, bioconversion, bioelectronics, bioethics, biofeedback, biogas, biography, biohazard, bioholonics, bioindustry, bioinfomatics, biomass, bionics, biopsy, bioreactor, biorhythm, bioscience, biosensor, biotechnology, biotelemetry, biotron, bird carving, bird sanctuary, bird watching, birdcall, birdie, Birmingham, birth, birth control, birthday, bourbon, Burberry, burger, burlesque, burner, burn-out syndrome, burst, buying power, by, bye, C major, crowbar, Farbenfabriken Bayer Aktiengesellschaft, hair combed in stripes across a bald pate, old man who takes Viagra, scale, updating a software version, Vermont, vernier, verse, version, vertical marketing, violin, violinist, virgin, Virginia, virginity, virtual, virtual circuit, virtual reality), 散髪屋 (barber shop). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | バーバー , さ"ぱつや (barber shop), かみど" (barbershop), りようし, りはつし, と"や. (various references) | |
Korean | 이발사. (various references) | |
Macedonian | berber. (various references) | |
Manx | baareyder (barer, clipper, clipper person, cutter, shaver). (various references) | |
Maya | koos. (various references) | |
Norwegian | frisør (hairdresser), barbermester. (various references) | |
Papago | hihktham. (various references) | |
Papiamen | barbero (hairdresser). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | arberbay.(various references) | |
Polish | fryzjer (hairdresser). (various references) | |
Portuguese | barbeiro (men's hairdresser, shaver), cabeleireiro (coiffeur, hairdo, hairdresser, hairdryer). (various references) | |
Portuguese Brazilian | barbeiro. (various references) | |
Provencal | barbièr. (various references) | |
Romanian | frizer (hairdresser). (various references) | |
Romansch | barbier. (various references) | |
Romany | mooravnò. (various references) | |
Ruanda | kimwozi. (various references) | |
Russian | парикмахер (coiffeur, hairdresser). (various references) | |
Samoan | tagata otiulu. (various references) | |
Scottish | bearradair. (various references) | |
Sepedi | mmeodi. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | berberin (shaver), berber. (various references) | |
Shona | mugeri. (various references) | |
Sicilian | tagghiacapiddi. (various references) | |
Spanish | peluquero (coiffeur, haircutter, hairdresser), barbero (bib, shaver). (various references) | |
Swazi | um-gundzi. (various references) | |
Swedish | frisör (coiffeur, hairdresser, stylist), hårfrisör (hairdresser), barberare. (various references) | |
Tagalog | barbéro. (various references) | |
Thai | ช่างตั"ผม. (various references) | |
Turkish | berber (hairdresser, shaver). (various references) | |
Turkmen | dellek. (various references) | |
Ukranian | сильний вітер під час морозу, туман над водою в морозяний день, перукар (coiffeur, haircutter, hairdresser). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | thợ cắt tóc b n dân thiên hạ ai m chả biết chuyện đó, thợ cạo. (various references) | |
Welsh | barfwr, barbwr, eilliwr (shaver). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Sumerian | 3100 BCE-2500 BCE | kinda, munub. (various references) |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | barba, tonsor, tonsorem, tonsores, tonsoribus. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "barber": barbered, barbering, barberries, barberry, barbers, barbershop, barbershops. (additional references) | |
Words containing "barber": unbarbered. (additional references) | |
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"Barber" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: arber, arbre, Arbrex, Arzberg, Babbar, baber, Babera, Bambera, Bambur, Baraba, barba, Barbak, Barbar, barbe, barberd, Barberi, barbero, barbery, Barbey, barbi, Barbiere, Barbox, Barbro, Barbur, Bariba, barner, barrer, Barver, Batbayar, berbel, berberi, borbe, Braben, Bradbeer, burbar. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "barber" (pronounced bÄ"rber) |
| 4 | -Ä" r b er | Arbor, arbour, Harbor, harbour. |
| 3 | -r b er | absorber. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-b-b-e-r-r" | |
-1 letter: barbe, barer, barre, rebar. | |
-2 letters: abbe, babe, barb, bare, bear, brae, rare, rear. | |
-3 letters: arb, are, bar, bra, brr, ear, ebb, era, err, reb. | |
-4 letters: ab, ae, ar, ba, be, er, re. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-b-b-e-r-r" | |
+1 letter: barbers, crabber, drabber, grabber, rabbler. | |
+2 letters: absorber, barbered, barberry, barbwire, barrable, bayberry, brabbler, crabbers, crabbier, grabbers, grabbier, grabbler, jabberer, rabbiter, rabblers, reabsorb, rehabber. | |
+3 letters: absorbers, baneberry, barbarize, barbecuer, barbering, barbwires, bearberry, blaeberry, brabblers, bramblier, grabblers, jabberers, rabbiters, reabsorbs, rehabbers, scrabbler. | |
+4 letters: arbitrable, barbarized, barbarizes, barbecuers, barberries, barbershop, bargeboard, bayberries, blackberry, bombardier, breadboard, breadcrumb, fiberboard, fibreboard, rabbitries, reabsorbed, scrabblers, scrabblier, unbarbered. | |
+5 letters: abbreviator, backbreaker, baneberries, barbarities, barbershops, barbiturate, bargeboards, bearberries, beaverboard, birdbrained, blackbirder, blaeberries, bombardiers, breadboards, breadcrumbs, broomballer, fiberboards, fibreboards, perturbable, reabsorbing, rebarbative. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)42 61 72 62 65 72 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-... .- .-. -... . .-. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000010 01100001 01110010 01100010 01100101 01110010 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)B a r b e r |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0042 0061 0072 0062 0065 0072 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)366784687184 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Sounds 8. Quotations: Fiction | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Quotations: Spoken 11. Usage Frequency 12. Names: Frequency | 13. Expressions 14. Expressions: Internet 15. Translations: Modern 16. Translations: Ancient | 17. Derivations 18. Rhymes 19. Anagrams 20. Orthography | 21. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.