- barrel
- [[t]bæ̱rəl[/t]]
♦♦♦barrels, barrelling, barrelled(in AM, use barreling, barreled)1) N-COUNT A barrel is a large, round container for liquids or food.
The wine is aged for almost a year in oak barrels.
...barrels of pickled fish.
2) N-COUNT: oft N of n In the oil industry, a barrel is a unit of measurement equal to 159 litres.In 1989, Kuwait was exporting 1.5 million barrels of oil a day...
Oil prices were closing at $19.76 a barrel.
3) N-COUNT: oft N of n, n N The barrel of a gun is the tube through which the bullet moves when the gun is fired.He pushed the barrel of the gun into the other man's open mouth.
4) VERB If a vehicle or person is barreling in a particular direction, they are moving very quickly in that direction. [mainly AM][V prep/adv] The car was barreling down the street at a crazy speed.
Syn:5) → See also pork barrel6) PHRASE: PHR after v (emphasis) If you say, for example, that someone moves or buys something lock, stock, and barrel, you are emphasizing that they move or buy every part or item of it.They dug up their New Jersey garden and moved it lock, stock, and barrel back home.
7) PHRASE: V inflects If someone has you over a barrel, they have put you in a difficult situation where you have little choice but to do what they want you to do. [INFORMAL]8) PHRASE: V inflects (disapproval) If you say that someone is scraping the barrel, or scraping the bottom of the barrel, you disapprove of the fact that they are using or doing something of extremely poor quality. [INFORMAL]
English dictionary. 2008.
