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Origin and history of bare

bare(adj.)

Old English bær "naked, uncovered, unclothed," from Proto-Germanic *bazaz (source also of German bar, Old Norse berr, Dutch baar), from PIE *bhoso- "naked" (source also of Armenian bok "naked;" Old Church Slavonic bosu, Lithuanian basas "barefoot"). The meaning "sheer, absolute" (c. 1200) is from the notion of "complete in itself."

bare(v.)

"make bare, uncover," Old English barian, from bare (adj.). Related: Bared; baring.

Entries linking to bare

ballast(n.)

"heavy material used to steady a ship," 1520s, from Middle English bar "bare" (see bare (adj.); in this case "mere") + last "a load, burden," from Proto-Germanic *hlasta-, from PIE root *klā- "to spread out flat" (see lade). Or borrowed from identical terms in North Sea Germanic and Scandinavian (compare Old Danish barlast, 14c.). "Mere" because not carried for commercial purposes. Dutch balg-last "ballast," literally "belly-load," is a folk-etymology corruption.

bareback(adj.)

also bare-back, "riding or performing on an unsaddled ('bare-backed') horse," 1560s, from bare (adj.) + back (n.).

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Trends of bare

adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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barefoot
"without shoes and stockings," Old English bærfot; see bare (adj.) + foot (n.). Similar compounds in other Germanic languages. The parody of sexist attitudes or culture expressed by the phrase barefoot and pregnant dates to 1943; as barefooted and pregnant attested from at least
strip
"remove the clothes of, deprive of covering," early 13c., strepen, a specialized sense of Old English -striepan, -strypan (transitive) "to plunder, rob, despoil" (as in West Saxon bestrypan "to plunder," Anglian -strepan). This is from Proto-Germanic *straupijan (source also of M
air
c. 1300, "invisible gases that surround the earth," from Old French air "atmosphere, breeze, weather" (12c.), from Latin aer "air, lower atmosphere, sky," from Greek aēr (genitive aeros) "mist, haze, clouds," later "atmosphere" (perhaps related to aenai "to blow, breathe"), which
disheveled
"bare-headed," late 14c., from Old French deschevele "bare-headed, with shaven head," past-participle adjective from descheveler...
bleak
The original English sense is obsolete; the meaning "bare, windswept" is from 1530s; the figurative sense of "cheerless"...Bleak has survived, not in the "pale" sense, but meaning only "bare, barren." Related: Bleakly; bleakness....
self-evident
"evident in itself without proof or reasoning; producing clear conviction upon a bare presentation to the mind," 1680s, from...
detect
early 15c., "uncover, lay bare, expose, disclose, reveal," a sense now obsolete, from Latin detectus, past participle of...
circulate
1540s as a chemical term in reference to alternating vaporization and condensation, from Latin circulatus, past participle of circulare "to form a circle," from circulus "small ring" (see circle (n.)). Intransitive sense of "to pass about freely, pass from place to place or perso
put-out
"offended, angry, upset," by 1887, from the verbal phrase in the sense of "offend," attested by 1822; see put (v.) + out (adv.). Perhaps via the earlier sense of "cause to lose self-possession, disconcert" (1580s). The verbal phrase is from mid-14c. as "drive out, banish, exile;"
bulletin
1765, "authenticated official report concerning some event, issued for the information of the public," from French bulletin (16c.), modeled on Italian bulletino, diminutive of bulletta "document, voting slip," itself a diminutive of Latin bulla "round object" (see bull (n.2)) wit

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