bar

bar¹ café, bar

Etymology tree of bar¹

inherited borrowed derived

English bar

French bar

Italian bar

Pronunciation

• /ˈbar/^[1]

Forms

bar m^[1]

Etymology

The café is borrowed from English bar, literally “barrier, rail”, from the rail that separated customers from the counter, then the counter itself, and finally the whole establishment.^[2][3][4][5] GRADIT dates this sense of the English word to 1592, and traces the English word to Old French barre (“barrier, bar”).^[4][6] Before the drinking counter, the English rail was the bar dividing a court of justice.^[2]

Prati, Zingarelli and Gabrielli bring the Italian word through French bar, recorded in French from 1861.^[7][8][9] The word is a doublet of barra.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT, Devoto–Oli and Sabatini–Coletti date the word to 1892, when Garollo's dictionary listed it as an English word for a counter selling drinks.^[4][10][7] DELI's first Italian record is 1897, in the sense “public place where coffee, liquor and soft drinks are served, mostly at the counter”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In 1926 Rigutini and Cappuccini called it “an exotic name, spread from England and America together with the new kind of shop it designates”, and that year the authorities declined to replace it, since taverna named a different kind of place;^[2][6] Tuscany's mescita was by then kept almost only for wine shops.^[2][6] Purists proposed barra and barro instead, without success, and Tuscan had the adapted form barre.^[2][11] The foreign plural bars has dropped out.^[6]

The sense “cabinet for drinks at home” is recorded from 1941.^[2] Barman is recorded from 1908 and barista, the person who serves at the counter, from 1926.^[3] The phrases chiacchiere da bar (idle bar talk) and bar Sport (the bar where fans talk football, and by extension any place of idle chatter) treat the bar as the home of small talk.^[8][10]

Timeline

• 1892 – Garollo's dictionary lists bar as an English word.^[7][4]
• 1897 – DELI's first Italian record.^[2]
• 1908 – Barman is recorded.^[3]
• 1926 – The authorities decide not to replace the word, barista is recorded.^[2][3]
• 1941 – The sense “drinks cabinet” is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A café or bar, a public place where coffee, drinks and snacks are served, mostly at the counter: Ci vediamo al bar sotto l’ufficio.^{[4][10][12][1]}
2. A cabinet for keeping drinks at home (mobile bar).^[4][10][8]
3. (as an adjective) Serving as a bar: il servizio bar del treno.^[10][8]

Word family

• barista
• barman
• baretto

bar² unit of pressure

Pronunciation

• /ˈbar/^[1]

Forms

bar m^[1]

Etymology

The unit is an international scientific word, coined in 1906 by the Norwegian physicist and meteorologist Vilhelm Bjerknes in a German publication, together with the units for a tenth, a hundredth and a thousandth of it.^[2][3] He based it on Ancient Greek βάρος (báros, “weight”), already linked with air pressure in the word barometro.^[2][3] GRADIT, Devoto–Oli and Zingarelli derive it from the adjective βαρύς (barús, “heavy”).^[4][10][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI and Nocentini date the Italian word to the Enciclopedia italiana of 1930;^{[2][3][4][10][12]} GRADIT and Devoto–Oli give 1955, and Sabatini–Coletti 1846, a date earlier than the coinage DELI describes.^{[2][3][4][10][12]}

Semantic evolution

The bar was first defined in the centimetre–gram–second system, as a megabarye.^[13][5] Today it equals 100,000 pascals, and its submultiple, the millibar, is the unit of weather maps.^[4][12]

Timeline

• 1906 – Bjerknes coins the word.^[2]
• 1930 – The Enciclopedia italiana uses it.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (physics, meteorology) A unit of pressure equal to 100,000 pascals, a little less than one atmosphere.^[4][10][9]

Word family

• millibar