bar n.1
1. (UK Und.) a kind of false die, on which certain numbers are prevented from turning up; as v., to use such a die [SE bar, a solid object of which one pair of sides is longer than the other].
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Detection of Vyle and Detestable Use of Dice Play 29: This new-nurtured novice [...] is become so good a scholar, that he knoweth readily his flats and barris, and hath been snapper with the old cole at 2 or 3 deep strokes. | |
 | Nobody and Somebody 4 to G 3: Those Demi-bars... those bar Sizeaces [F&H]. | |
| Cheats IV i: The wax’d, the grav’d, the slipt, the goad, the fullam, the flat, the bristle, the bar. | |
| Chamber’s Cyclopedia Supplement n.p.: Barr Dice, a species of false dice, so formed that they will not easily lie on certain sides . |
2. as a financial unit [SE bar, a standard of weight or a denomination of a currency, esp. as used by 18C merchants in trading with Africans who exchanged their goods for a set number of iron bars; or ? Rom. bauro, heavy, big].
(a) £1 sterling, orig. a sovereign.
| Chequers 78: I dicked a bar and a pash-crooner (I saw a sovereign and a half-crown). | |
| Autobiog. of a Gipsey 112: He gave me the fourteen bar. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Truth (London) 22 Dec. 1626/1: My darling prairie-star, / You'll bring A golden bar,* To wide the gate of that select estate / [note] *Sporting slang, meaning money. | |
| Memoirs of a ‘Sky Pilot’ 254: Other [words] were new to me, such as [...] ‘bar’ for a sovereign. | |
| Cheapjack 38: A pound is a ‘phunt,’ a ‘bar,’ or a ‘nicker’. | |
| Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 1: Bar: A £1 note or sovereign. | |
| Down Donkey Row 24: Half a bar each I promised Mike and Johnny. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Best of Myles (1968) 231: Anybody that can play a concerto on a piano deserves more than five bar anny day of the week. | |
| Smoke in the Lanes 174: He gie me father half a bar. [Ibid.] (Gloss. of Romani terms) 301: Bar – £1. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Trainspotting 151: The bastard owes us twenty fuckin bar. | |
| Fleshmarket Close (2005) 110: ‘How much did he give you?’ ‘Two bar.’ Meaning two quid. | |
| Ringer [ebook] n.p.: Turning me out last night cost me the best part of 500-bar ... how am I supposed to make that back, eh? | |
| (ed.) ‘Drill Slang Glossary’ at Forensic Linguistic Databank 🌐 Bars — money, pounds (£). |
(b) (Irish) a shilling (5p).
| Ulysses 241: Two bar entrance, soldiers half price. | |
| Slanguage. |
3. (also bar-up) the (usu. erect) penis [its rigidity].
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 159: She grabbed a jar and greased my bar. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Bar. 2. An erection. Sometimes ‘bar-up’. |
4. (drugs) a measure of drugs.
(a) cannabis, usu. as one ounce of hashish; thus in multiples that refer to ounce-weights, e.g. a nine-bar, nine ounces [the shape of a typical lump of the drug].
| Drugs from A to Z (1970) 38: bar A solid block of marijuana, stuck together with honey or sugar water. | |
| Underground Dict. (1972) 29: bar. [...] Marijuana or hashish mixed with water and honey or sugar so it will harden into a solid block. | |
| Grits 221: An yer’s me with a bleedin ninebar in me pockit while am standin ina fuckin dock, boy! | |
| (con. 1990s) A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 437: He had given me a nine-bar (nine ounces) of good hash. | |
| Panopticon (2013) 115: Over one hundred charges [...] three sheets of LSD [...] an eighth of sinsemilla, a nine-bar in December. | |
| Young Team 5: ‘Jamesey’s a big dealer n sells nine-bars n swedgers’. |
(b) an ounce of heroin.
| Indep. 11 Dec. 11: Asian youths in the Midlands were regularly buying ‘nine bars’ (9oz or 250g of heroin) and paying for it with up to £9000 in cash. |
(c) a 2-mg bar of Xanax, scored for easy division into four .5 mg doses.
| (con. 2016) in We Own This City 137: Yeah, but the issue is I gotta get some [Xanax] bars first,’ the informant said. |
5. (UK Und.) in pl., prison.
| Guardian Society 13 July 🌐 If I get locked, he’s going to work my phone and if he gets locked, they’re going to work my phone, either way I will get my money, out bars, in bars. |
In phrases
(Aus.) to achieve an erection.
| Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 21: Bar Up Achieve an erection. | |
| (con. 1943) Coorparoo Blues [ebook] He started to bar up under the towel as she stood in front of him. ‘Like what you see?’. |
to have an erection.
| ‘Penpower Plus’ in Knave 23 3: This [display of flesh] often gets the lads going, and I often see one ‘crack a bar’ while I feel myself up in front of them. | |
| ‘The Star Song’ in Tell me a Story 113: Do you crack a bar / When you read The Star / We do. |
a half-sovereign (ten shillings, 50p).
| Newcastle Courant 20 Aug. 5/2: Well, [...] half a bar (sovereign) is half a bar the world over. | |
| Pitcher in Paradise 178: Four to one to half a bar! | |
| Cockney At Home 195: And again I’ve known young fillies – lovely as a sovereign’s worth o’ change paid out in error for half a bar. | |
| (con. 1900s) ‘Master’ and Men 296: The Bank of England its very self won’t take a ’arf-bar without it bears the Governor’s tooth-mark! | |
| Sharpe of Flying Squad 331: half a bar : ten shillings. | |
| ‘The Dark Diceman’ in Bitten by the Tarantula (2005) 217: He sways slightly, waving half-a-bar [...] he draws all his money in ten bobs from the bank. | |
| Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 175: Ten shillings is ‘half a nicker’ or ‘half a bar’. | |
| Signs of Crime 187: Half a bar 50p (once a 10s note). | |
| Muvver Tongue 71: The other day I picked up a quick half-bar through backing a good thing in the National. | |
| in Little Legs 194: half a bar ten shillings (a word dating back to pre-decimal currency days, and now used less frequently). | |
| Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 278: So he decides to plonk the whole half-a-bar on the next. |
to have an erection.
| DSUE (8th edn) 49: [...] C.20. | |
| Chopper 3 35: I get all [‘good luck with girls’] when I am behind bars rather then when I have one. |
SE in slang uses
In phrases
(Aus./N.Z.) to detest, to reject, to be intolerant of.
| Truth (Perth) 21 may 3/1: He attributes most of his trouble to the fact that he is a married man and father of a grown-up family, but neither wife nor children will stand a bar of him at any price. | |
| Eve. Teleg. (Charters Towers) 14 May 4/1: The name of Charters Towers stank in the nostrils of mining investors in London. They would not have a bar of it. | |
| Grafton Argus (NSW) 12 Feb. 2/1: Regarding the argument that the Pope is supreme head and judge of the conscience of men on earth, the members of the Protestant Federation would not have a bar of it. | |
| Courtship of Uncle Henry 74: Something’s always biting him. He can’t stand a bar of her. | |
| Death of a Lake (1971) 102: ‘Genuine poetry, yes.’ ‘Can’t stand a bar of it’. | |
| Yarns of Billy Borker (1980) 39: They go to a fence, see, a receiver of stolen goods named Octopus McGillicuddy. But the old Octopus wouldn’t have a bar of it. | |
| Aussie Swearers Guide 75: I don’t care if his mother won Tatt’s. I can’t stand a bar of him. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 144: not have a bar of it Total rejection. Early C20. | |
| ‘The Meat Axe by the Kitchen Door’ in Passing Strange (2015) 6: ‘They’re not stupid. They won’t have a bar of you’. | |
| Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] I [...] paddled straight out, knowing full well Dad wouldn’t have a bar of it. | |
| Stoning 36: F‘yfe didn’t want a bar of me’. |