BAR - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

BARAuthored

The Law Mind • 1518 words

Definition

BAR carries three distinct but interrelated legal meanings, each descending from the same physical image — a railing that separates, blocks, or closes off.

1. The physical partition in a courtroom. The bar is the railing or barrier that divides the space reserved for judges, counsel, jury, and court officers from the area open to the general public. In English practice, the bar was a fixed architectural feature; barristers addressed the court from within or at it, while the public remained behind it. Prisoners were brought to the bar to be arraigned or sentenced. Anderson's Dictionary traces the name to a double-rail system: one rail separated the bench from the advocates' area, a second separated advocates from suitors and spectators.

2. The legal profession collectively. "The bar" refers to attorneys and advocates as a body — the community of persons admitted to practice law before the courts. A lawyer is "called to the bar" upon admission to practice. Bar associations, bar examinations, and bar membership all carry this meaning. The phrase derives directly from meaning (1): those permitted to stand at or within the courtroom bar were, by extension, the recognized practitioners.

3. A procedural or substantive obstacle that permanently destroys a claim or right. In this sense, a bar is a legal barrier that extinguishes a plaintiff's ability to maintain a particular action — not merely delaying or suspending it, but ending it entirely. Bouvier calls it "a perpetual destruction of the action of the plaintiff" and aligns it with the Roman exceptio peremptoria, the permanent exception, as opposed to a dilatory plea that merely postpones. A successful bar forecloses not just the present claim but any future claim of the same nature arising from the same facts. Statutes of limitations, res judicata, collateral estoppel, laches, release, and the running of a claim period all operate as bars in this sense.

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Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The Wiktionary definitions retrieved for this entry are limited to given names (Barbara, Barry), which are not relevant here. In ordinary modern English, "bar" means a rod or beam used as a fastener or lever, a counter where drinks are served, a sandbar, or a unit of musical measure.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A piece of wood, metal, or other material, long in proportion to its breadth or thickness, used as a lever and for various other purposes, but especially for a hindrance, obstruction, or fastening."

The Webster's definition captures the physical-obstruction sense that underlies legal meaning (3): a bar blocks passage. The legal meaning of bar-as-profession (meaning 2) has no common-language counterpart at all and is invisible to ordinary dictionaries. Researchers encountering "bar" in historical documents must determine from context whether the reference is architectural (the courtroom railing), professional (the practicing attorneys), or procedural (a claim-extinguishing legal event) — three meanings that coexist across centuries of legal writing and often appear on the same page.

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Common Confusion

Bar and plea in bar are sometimes used interchangeably, but they are not identical. A plea in bar is the procedural vehicle — the formal pleading — by which a defendant raises a bar. The bar itself is the substantive legal result. A successful plea in bar produces a bar to the action; the plea is the means, the bar is the consequence.

Bar and abatement are also conflated in historical sources. An abatement is a dilatory defense that suspends or defeats the present form of the action without necessarily destroying the underlying right. A bar is permanent. Bouvier draws this line explicitly: a plaintiff whose action is barred may still have a valid underlying cause — the bar may operate against the particular form of action brought, not against the right itself — but the distinction depends on the nature of the bar pleaded. Researchers reading pre-twentieth-century pleading records should not assume that "barred" and "abated" are equivalent.

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Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

As a procedural bar (meaning 3), the term encompasses several formally recognized categories:

Statutory bar: A legislatively imposed time limit or condition that extinguishes the right to bring an action. Distinguished from a statute of limitations by the fact that some statutory bars operate as jurisdictional conditions rather than affirmative defenses.

Judgment bar / res judicata bar: A prior final judgment on the merits that bars relitigation of the same claim between the same parties.

Equitable bar / laches: The doctrine that unreasonable delay in asserting a right, combined with prejudice to the opposing party, bars equitable relief.

Claim bar in bankruptcy: A court-ordered deadline by which creditors must file proofs of claim; failure to file operates as a bar to participation in the estate.

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Why It Matters in Research

The three meanings of bar operate simultaneously in historical legal sources, and misreading which sense is intended can corrupt research results. In older English and American court records, "at the bar" most often means physically present in the courtroom before the tribunal — it does not always mean the proceeding involved a lawyer. In colonial American records especially, parties frequently appeared "at the bar" pro se.

The professional sense — the bar as the legal profession — becomes increasingly prominent in American sources after the formation of state bar associations in the late nineteenth century. References to "the bar" before roughly 1870 in American sources more likely denote the courtroom location than an organized professional body.

The procedural sense — bar as destruction of a claim — is the most technically precise and the most historically stable. Bouvier's treatment is careful and worth reading in full for researchers working with early American pleading records. The key analytical move is distinguishing a bar from a mere suspension: historical pleadings that "abate" an action are not the same as those that "bar" it, though the terms are sometimes loosely used.

Jurisdictional variation matters for statutory bars specifically. Whether a limitations period operates as a bar to the right (extinguishing it) or merely to the remedy (leaving the underlying right intact but unenforceable) differs by jurisdiction and period and can affect whether a claim can be revived by later events such as part payment or acknowledgment.

In the Law Mind corpus, bar as equitable obstacle connects directly to laches doctrine (civpro_135) and unclean hands (remedies_53). Bar as registration obstacle in trademark law represents a statutory application of the concept (ip_70). Researchers moving between these encyclopedia entries should note that "bar" in ip_70 refers to legislative conditions on trademark registration, a distinct use of the term that carries no procedural-plea heritage.

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Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries converge on the physical and procedural senses and are largely silent on the bar-as-profession sense as a formal definition, treating it instead as derivative and self-evident.

Black's (both editions) and Burrill lead with the courtroom-partition meaning, grounding it in the physical architecture of English courts. Anderson's Dictionary is the most precise historically, explaining the double-rail structure — one bar separating bench from advocates, a second separating advocates from public — which clarifies why "called to the bar" means what it does: admission past the second rail into the advocates' zone.

Bouvier's treatment of bar to actions is the most analytically developed and remains the best historical source for the procedural meaning. His alignment of the bar with the Roman exceptio peremptoria is not shared by the other dictionaries and is valuable for researchers tracing civil law influence on early American pleading doctrine. Bouvier also draws the nuanced point that a bar to a particular action does not necessarily foreclose all relief — only relief of that form on those allegations — which is important for understanding how nineteenth-century courts managed pleading failures.

The Rapalje & Lawrence excerpt retrieved for this entry is not substantively on point (it addresses bankruptcy and marriage proceedings) and should be disregarded for this term. No meaningful divergence exists among the relevant sources on the core meanings; the variation is in depth of treatment rather than in substance.

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Jurisdictional Note

The professional sense of bar — admission to practice — is regulated entirely at the state level in the United States, with each state maintaining its own bar and admission requirements. Federal courts have independent admission requirements, though most condition admission on state bar membership. In England and Wales, the bar retains its historical distinction between barristers (who hold rights of audience at the bar) and solicitors; this distinction does not map onto American legal practice and should not be imported when reading English sources.

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BARmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

1. A partition or railing running across a court-room, intended to separate the general public from the space occupied by the judges, counsel, jury, and others concerned in the trial of a cause. In the English courts it is the partition behind which all outer-bar- risters and every member of the public must stand. Solicitors, being officers of the court, are admitted within it; as are also queen's counsel, barristers with patents of precedence, and serjeants, in virtue of their ranks. Par- ties who appear in person also are placed within the bar on the floor of the court. 2. The term also designates a particular part of the court-room; for example, the place where prisoners stand at their trial, whence the expression "prisoner at the bar."

BARmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

traders. The bankrupt was treated as a criminal offender; and, formerly, the not duly surrendering his property under & commission of bankruptcy, when summoned, was a capital felony. The bank- rupt laws are now, and have for some time past been, regarded as a connected system of civil legis- lation, having the double object of enforcing a complete discovery and equitable distribution of the property of an insolvent trader, and of confer- ring on the trader the reciprocal advantage of secur- ity of person and a discharge from all claims of his creditors. By the General Bankrupt Act (6) Geo.

BARmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

To Actions. A perpetual de- struction of the action of the plaintiff It is the exceptio peremptoria of the ancient authors. Co, Litt. 303 b; Steph. PL. App. xxviii. It is always a perpetual destruction of the particular action to which it is a bar, Doctrina Plac. xxiii. § 1, p. 120; and it is set up only by a plea to the action, or in chief. But it does not always operate as a per manent obstacle to the plaintiff's right of action

BARn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

A piece of wood, metal, or other material, long in proportion to its breadth or thickness, used as a lever and for various other purposes, but especially for a hindrance, obstruction, or fastening; as, the bars of a fence or gate; the bar of a door. Thou shalt make bars of shittim wood. Ex. xxvi. 26. An indefinite quantity of some substance, so shaped as to be long in proportion to its breadth and thickness; as, a bar of gold or of lead; a bar of soap. Anything which obstructs, hinders, or prevents; an obstruction; a barrier. Must I new bars to my own joy create Dryden. A bank of sand, gravel, or other matter, esp. at the mouth of a river or harbor, obstructing navigation. Any railing that divides a room, or office, or hall of assembly, in order to reserve a space for those having special privileges; as, the bar of the House of Commons. The railing that incloses the place which counsel occupy in courts of justice. Hence, the phrase at the bar of the court signifies in open court. The place in court where prisoners are stationed for arraignment, trial, or sentence. The whole body of lawyers licensed in a court or district; the legal profession. A special plea constituting a sufficient answer to plaintiff's action. Any tribunal; as, the bar of public opinion; the bar of God. A barrier or counter, over which liquors and food are passed to customers; hence, the portion of the room behind the counter where liquors for sale are kept. An ordinary, like a fess but narrower, occupying only one fifth part of the field. A broad shaft, or band, or stripe; as, a bar of light; a bar of color. A vertical line across the staff. Bars divide the staff into spaces which represent measures, and are themselves called measures. The space between the tusks and grinders in the upper jaw of a horse, in which the bit is placed. The part of the crust of a horse's hoof which is bent inwards towards the frog at the heel on each side, and extends into the center of the sole. A drilling or tamping rod. A vein or dike crossing a lode. A gatehouse of a castle or fortified town. A slender strip of wood which divides and supports the glass of a window; a sash bar. Bar shoe (Far.), a kind of horseshoe having a bar across the usual opening at the heel, to protect a tender frog from injury.  -- Bar shot, a double headed shot, consisting of a bar, with a ball or half ball at each end; -- formerly used for destroying the masts or rigging in naval combat.  -- Bar sinister (Her.), a term popularly but erroneously used for baton, a mark of illegitimacy. See Baton.  -- Bar tracery (Arch.), ornamental stonework resembling bars of iron twisted into the forms required.  -- Blank bar (Law). See Blank.  -- Case at bar (Law), a case presently before the court; a case under argument.  -- In bar of, as a sufficient reason against; to prevent.  -- Matter in bar, or Defence in bar, a plea which is a final defense in an action.  -- Plea in bar, a plea which goes to bar or defeat the plaintiff's action absolutely and entirely.  -- Trial at bar (Eng. Law), a trial before all the judges of one the superior courts of Westminster, or before a quorum representing the full court.

BARv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To fasten with a bar; as, to bar a door or gate. To restrict or confine, as if by a bar; to hinder; to obstruct; to prevent; to prohibit; as, to bar the entrance of evil; distance bars our intercourse; the statute bars my right; the right is barred by time; a release bars the plaintiff's recovery; -- sometimes with up. He barely looked the idea in the face, and hastened to bar it in its dungeon. Hawthorne. To except; to exclude by exception. Nay, but I bar to-night: you shall not gauge me By what we do to- night. Shak. To cross with one or more stripes or lines. For the sake of distinguishing the feet more clearly, I have barred them singly. Burney.

Barname

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A diminutive of the female given name Barbara. | A diminutive of the male given name Barry.

barnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length. | A solid metal object with uniform (round, square, hexagonal, octagonal or rectangular) cross-section; in the US its smallest dimension is ¹⁄₄ inch or greater, a piece of thinner material being called a strip. | A cuboid piece of any solid commodity. | A broad shaft, band, or stripe. | A long, narrow drawn or printed rectangle, cuboid or cylinder, especially as used in a bar code or a bar chart. | Any of various lines used as punctuation or diacritics, such as the pipe ⟨|⟩, fraction bar (as in 12), and strikethrough (as in Ⱥ), formerly (obsolete) including oblique marks such as the slash. | The sign indicating that the characteristic of a logarithm is negative, conventionally placed above the digit(s) to show that it applies to the characteristic only and not to the mantissa. | A similar sign indicating that the charge on a particle is the negative of its usual value (and that consequently the particle is in fact an antiparticle). | A business selling alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises, or the premises themselves; a public house. | The counter of such premises. | A counter, or simply a cabinet, from which alcoholic drinks are served in a private house or a hotel room. | Premises or a counter serving any type of beverage. | An informal establishment selling food to be consumed on the premises. | An establishment offering cosmetic services. | An official order or pronouncement that prohibits some activity. | Anything that obstructs, hinders, or prevents; an obstruction; a barrier. | A metasyntactic variable representing an unspecified entity, often the second in a series, following foo. | A dividing line (physical or notional) in the chamber of a legislature beyond which only members and officials may pass. | The railing surrounding the part of a courtroom in which the judges, lawyers, defendants and witnesses stay. | The bar exam, the legal licensing exam. | Collectively, lawyers or the legal profession; specifically applied to barristers in some countries, but including all lawyers in others. | One of an array of bar-shaped symbols that display the level of something, such as wireless signal strength or battery life remaining. | A vertical line across a musical staff dividing written music into sections, typically of equal durational value. | One of those musical sections. | Hip-hop lyrics, especially ones written and delivered skillfully. | One of those musical sections. | Something well-said or well-written. | A horizontal pole that must be crossed in the high jump and pole vault. | Any level of achievement regarded as a challenge to be overcome; a standard or expectation. | The crossbar. | The central divider between the inner and outer table of a backgammon board, where stones are placed if they are hit. | An addition to a military medal, on account of a subsequent act. | A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance; especially | A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance; especially: | A linear shoaling landform feature within a body of water; a formation extending across the mouth of a river or harbor or off a beach, and which may obstruct navigation. (FM 55-501). | One of the ordinaries in heraldry; a diminutive of a fess. | A city gate, in some British place names. | A drilling or tamping rod. | A vein or dike crossing a lode. | A gatehouse of a castle or fortified town. | The part of the crust of a horse's hoof which is bent inwards towards the frog at the heel on each side, and extends into the centre of the sole. | The space between the tusks and grinders in the upper jaw of a horse, in which the bit is placed. | A measure of drugs, typically one ounce. | A small, tablet-shaped dose of Xanax, typically containing two milligrams and able to be split into quarters.

barverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

To obstruct the passage of (someone or something). | To prohibit. | To lock or bolt with a bar. | To imprint or paint with bars, to stripe.

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