barrel

Meanings

Noun

• A round vessel or cask, of greater length than breadth, and bulging in the middle, made of staves bound with hoops, and having flat ends or heads. Sometimes applied to a similar cylindrical container made of metal, usually called a drum.
• The quantity which constitutes a full barrel: the volume or weight this represents varies by local law and custom.
• A solid drum, or a hollow cylinder or case
• A metallic tube, as of a gun, from which a projectile is discharged.
• A ceiling-mounted tube from which lights are suspended.
• A tube.
• The hollow basal part of a feather.
• The part of a clarinet which connects the mouthpiece and upper joint, and looks rather like a barrel (1).
• A wave that breaks with a hollow compartment.
• A waste receptacle.
• The ribs and belly of a horse or pony.
• A jar.
• Any of the dark-staining regions in the somatosensory cortex of rodents, etc., where somatosensory inputs from the contralateral side of the body come in from the thalamus.
• A statistic derived from launch angle and exit velocity of a ball hit in play.

Verb

• To put or to pack in a barrel or barrels.
• To move quickly or in an uncontrolled manner.
• To assume the shape of a barrel; specifically, of the image on a computer display, television, etc., to exhibit barrel distortion, where the sides bulge outwards.

Related

Similar words

• cask, tun

Origin

• From Middle English barel, from Anglo-Norman baril, Old French baril, bareil, of uncertain origin. An attempt to link baril to Old French barre (compare Medieval Latin barra) via assumed Vulgar Latin *barrīculum meets the phonological requirement, but fails to connect the word semantically. The alternate connection to Frankish *baril, *beril or Gothic 𐌱𐌴𐍂𐌹𐌻𐍃, from Proto-Germanic *barilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer-, *bʰrē-, is more plausible as it connects not only the form of the word but also the sense; equivalent to bear + -le. Compare also Old High German biril, Luxembourgish Bärel, Bierel, Old Norse berill, Old English byrla. More at bear.