Bar vs. Block — What's the Difference?

A long rigid piece of wood, metal, or similar material, typically used as an obstruction, fastening, or weapon

A solid piece of a hard substance, such as wood, having one or more flat sides.

A counter in a pub, restaurant, or cafe across which drinks or refreshments are served

Such a piece used as a construction member or as a support.

A barrier or restriction to an action or advance

Such a piece upon which chopping or cutting is done

Any of the short sections or measures, typically of equal time value, into which a piece of music is divided, shown on a score by vertical lines across the stave

Such a piece upon which persons are beheaded.

A partition in a court room, now usually notional, beyond which most people may not pass and at which an accused person stands

One of a set of small wooden or plastic pieces, such as a cube, bar, or cylinder, used as a building toy.

The profession of barrister

(Printing) A large amount of text.

A unit of pressure equivalent to a hundred thousand newtons per square metre or approximately one atmosphere.

(Sports) A starting block.

Fasten (something, especially a door or window) with a bar or bars

A stand from which articles are displayed and sold at an auction

Prevent or prohibit (someone) from doing something or from going somewhere

A mold or form on which an item is shaped or displayed

Mark (something) with bars or stripes

A substance, such as wood or stone, that has been prepared for engraving.

Except for

A pulley or a system of pulleys set in a casing.

A relatively long, straight, rigid piece of solid material used as a fastener, support, barrier, or structural or mechanical member.

An engine block.

A solid oblong block of a substance or combination of ingredients, such as soap or candy.

A bloc.

A usually rectangular slice of any of various flat baked confections that are typically dense in texture.

A set of like items, such as shares of stock, sold or handled as a unit.

A rectangular block of a precious metal.

A group of four or more unseparated postage stamps forming a rectangle.

See horizontal bar.

(Canadian) A group of townships in an unsurveyed area.

A horizontal rod that marks the height to be cleared in high jumping or pole vaulting.

A usually rectangular section of a city or town bounded on each side by consecutive streets.

A standard, expectation, or degree of requirement

A segment of a street bounded by consecutive cross streets and including its buildings and inhabitants.

Something that impedes or prevents action or progress

A large building divided into separate units, such as apartments.

A ridge, as of sand or gravel, on a shore or streambed, that is formed by the action of tides or currents.

A length of railroad track controlled by signals.

A narrow marking, as a stripe or band.

Something that obstructs; an obstacle

A narrow metal or embroidered strip worn on a military uniform indicating rank or service.

(Sports) An act of bodily obstruction, as of a player or the ball.

Chiefly British A small insignia worn on a military decoration indicating that it has been awarded an additional time.

(Football) An act of legally using one's body to obstruct or move a defensive player so that a player in possession of the ball may advance downfield, pass, or otherwise execute an offensive play.

(Heraldry) A pair of horizontal parallel lines drawn across a shield.

(Medicine) Interruption or obstruction of a physiological function

The nullification, defeat, or prevention of a claim or action.

(Psychology) A sudden cessation of speech or a thought process without an immediate observable cause, sometimes considered a consequence of repression. Also called mental block.

The process by which nullification, defeat, or prevention is achieved.

(Slang) The human head

The railing in a courtroom separating the participants in a legal proceeding from the spectators.

To stop or impede the passage of or movement through; obstruct

A court or courtroom.

To prevent from happening, succeeding, or progressing

Attorneys considered as a group. Used with the.

To shut out from view

The profession of law. Used with the.

To stop the passage of (a motion or bill) in a legislative assembly.

A vertical line drawn through a staff to mark off a measure.

(Sports) To prevent or slow the movement of (an opponent) by using one's body, as by making a block in football.

A measure.

(Sports) To stop or deflect (a ball or puck) by using one's body.

Variant of barre.

(Medicine) To interrupt or obstruct the functioning of (a physiological process), especially by the use of drugs.

A counter at which drinks, especially alcoholic drinks, and sometimes food, are served.

(Psychology) To fail to remember.

An establishment or room having such a counter.

To support, strengthen, or retain in place by means of a block.

A unit of pressure equal to one million (106) dynes per square centimeter.

To shape, mold, or form with or on a block

To fasten securely with a long, straight, rigid piece of material

To indicate broadly without great detail; sketch. Often used with out

To shut in or confine

To run (trains) on a block system.

To obstruct or impede; block

To obstruct the movement of an opponent by using one's body.

To keep out; exclude

To stop or deflect a ball or puck by using one's body.

To prohibit or prevent (someone) from doing something

To suffer a mental block. Often used with on

To prohibit (an action)

A substantial, often approximately cuboid, piece of any substance.

(Law) To nullify, defeat, or prevent (a claim or action).

A chopping block: a cuboid base for cutting or beheading.

To rule out; except

A wig block: a simplified head model upon which wigs are worn.

To mark with stripes or bands.

A mould on which hats, bonnets, etc., are shaped.

Chiefly British Except for; excluding

A piece of hard wood on which a stereotype or electrotype plate is mounted.

A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length.

A case or frame housing one or more sheaves (pulleys), used with ropes to increase or redirect force, for example as part of lifting gear or a sailing ship's rigging. See also block and tackle.

A solid metal object with uniform (round, square, hexagonal, octagonal or rectangular) cross-section; in the US its smallest dimension is 4 inch or greater, a piece of thinner material being called a strip.

A section of split logs used as fuel.

A cuboid piece of any solid commodity.

A set of sheets (of paper) joined together at one end, forming a cuboid shape.

A broad shaft, band, or stripe.

(falconry) The perch on which a bird of prey is kept.

A long, narrow drawn or printed rectangle, cuboid or cylinder, especially as used in a bar code or a bar chart.

A physical area or extent of something, often rectangular or approximately rectangular.

(typography) Any of various lines used as punctuation or diacritics, such as the pipe ⟨{{!}}⟩, fraction bar (as in 12), and strikethrough (as in Ⱥ), formerly including oblique marks such as the slash.

(philately) A joined group of four (or in some cases nine) postage stamps, forming a roughly square shape.

(mathematics) 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.

(viticulture) A discrete group of vines in a vineyard, often distinguished from others by variety, clone, canopy training method, irrigation infrastructure, or some combination thereof.

(physics) 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 logical extent or region; a grouping or apportionment of like things treated together as a unit.

A business selling alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises, or the premises themselves; a public house.

(computing) A logical data storage unit containing one or more physical sectors (see cluster).

The counter of such premises.

(programming) A region of code in a program that acts as a single unit, such as a function or loop.

A counter, or simply a cabinet, from which alcoholic drinks are served in a private house or a hotel room.

(cryptography) A fixed-length group of bits making up part of a message.

, juice bar, etc.}} Premises or a counter serving any type of beverage.

(chemistry) A portion of a macromolecule, comprising many units, that has at least one feature not present in adjacent portions.

An establishment where alcohol and sometimes other refreshments are served.

(rail) A section of a railroad where the block system is used.

An informal establishment selling food to be consumed on the premises.

(computing) A contiguous range of Unicode code points used to encode characters of a specific type; can be of any size evenly divisible by 16, up to 65,536 (a full plane).

An establishment offering cosmetic services.

A contiguous group of urban lots of property, typically several acres in extent, not crossed by public streets.

An official order or pronouncement that prohibits some activity.

The distance from one street to another in a city or suburb that is built (approximately) to a grid pattern.

Anything that obstructs, hinders, or prevents; an obstruction; a barrier.

A roughly cuboid building.

A metasyntactic variable representing an unspecified entity, often the second in a series, following foo.

A cellblock.

A dividing line (physical or notional) in the chamber of a legislature beyond which only members and officials may pass.

Something that prevents something from passing.

The railing surrounding the part of a courtroom in which the judges, lawyers, defendants and witnesses stay.

Interference or obstruction of cognitive processes.

The bar exam, the legal licensing exam.

(sports) An action to interfere with the movement of an opposing player or of the object of play (ball, puck).

Collectively, lawyers or the legal profession; specifically applied to barristers in some countries, but including all lawyers in others.

A temporary or permanent ban that prevents access to an online account or service, or connection to or from a designated telephone number, IP address, or similar.

One of an array of bar-shaped symbols that display the level of something, such as wireless signal strength or battery life remaining.

(slang) The human head.

(music) A vertical line across a musical staff dividing written music into sections, typically of equal durational value.

(UK) Solitary confinement.

(music) One of those musical sections.

(obsolete) A blockhead; a stupid fellow; a dolt.

(sports) A horizontal pole that must be crossed in the high jump and pole vault.

(transitive) To fill or obstruct (something) so that it is not possible to pass.

(metaphorical) Any level of achievement regarded as a challenge to be overcome.

(transitive) To prevent (something or someone) from passing.

The crossbar.

(transitive) To prevent (something from happening or someone from doing something).

(backgammon) The central divider between the inner and outer table of a backgammon board, where stones are placed if they are hit.

To impede (an opponent or opponent's play).

An addition to a military medal, on account of a subsequent act.

To specify the positions and movements of the actors for (a section of a play or film).

A linear shoaling landform feature within a body of water.

To hit with a block.

A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance, especially a formation extending across the mouth of a river or harbor or off a beach, and which may obstruct navigation. (FM 55-501).

To play a block shot.

(heraldry) One of the ordinaries in heraldry; a diminutive of a fess.

(transitive) To bar (someone undesirable) from connecting via telephone, instant messaging, etc., or from accessing an online account or service, or similar.

A city gate, in some British place names.

(transitive) To bar (a message or communication), or bar connection with (an online account or service, a designated telephone number, IP address, etc.).

(mining) A drilling or tamping rod.

To wait for some condition to become true.

(mining) A vein or dike crossing a lode.

(transitive) To stretch or mould (a knitted item, a hat, etc.) into the desired shape.

(architecture) A gatehouse of a castle or fortified town.

(transitive) To shape or sketch out roughly.

(farriery) 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.

To knock (a person's hat) down over their eyes.

The space between the tusks and grinders in the upper jaw of a horse, in which the bit is placed.

A piece of wood more or less bulky; a solid mass of wood, stone, etc., usually with one or more plane, or approximately plane, faces; as, a block on which a butcher chops his meat; a block by which to mount a horse; children's playing blocks, etc.

(slang) A measure of drugs, typically one ounce.

The solid piece of wood on which condemned persons lay their necks when they are beheaded.

A non-SI unit of pressure equal to 100,000 pascals, approximately equal to atmospheric pressure at sea level.

The wooden mold on which hats, bonnets, etc., are shaped.

(transitive) To obstruct the passage of (someone or something).

A large or long building divided into separate houses or shops, or a number of houses or shops built in contact with each other so as to form one building; a row of houses or shops.

(transitive) To prohibit.

A square, or portion of a city inclosed by streets, whether occupied by buildings or not.

(transitive) To lock or bolt with a bar.

A grooved pulley or sheave incased in a frame or shell which is provided with a hook, eye, or strap, by which it may be attached to an object. It is used to change the direction of motion, as in raising a heavy object that can not be conveniently reached, and also, when two or more such sheaves are compounded, to change the rate of motion, or to exert increased force; - used especially in the rigging of ships, and in tackles.

To imprint or paint with bars, to stripe.

The perch on which a bird of prey is kept.

Except, other than, besides.

Any obstruction, or cause of obstruction; a stop; a hindrance; an obstacle; - also called blockage; as, a block in the way; a block in an artery; a block in a nerve; a block in a biochemical pathway.

(horse racing) Denotes the minimum odds offered on other horses not mentioned by name.

A piece of box or other wood for engravers' work.

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.

A piece of hard wood (as mahogany or cherry) on which a stereotype or electrotype plate is mounted to make it type high.

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.

A blockhead; a stupid fellow; a dolt.

Anything which obstructs, hinders, or prevents; an obstruction; a barrier.

A section of a railroad where the block system is used. See Block system, below.

A bank of sand, gravel, or other matter, esp. at the mouth of a river or harbor, obstructing navigation.

In Australia, one of the large lots into which public land, when opened to settlers, is divided by the government surveyors.

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 position of a player or bat when guarding the wicket.

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.

A number of individual items sold as a unit; as, a block of airline ticketes; a block of hotel rooms; a block of stock.

Any tribunal; as, the bar of public opinion; the bar of God.

The length of one side of a city block{5}, traversed along any side; as, to walk three blocks ahead and turn left at the corner.

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.

A halt in a mental process, especially one due to stress, memory lapse, confusion, etc.; as, a writer's block; to have a block in remembering a name.

An ordinary, like a fess but narrower, occupying only one fifth part of the field.

A quantity of binary-encoded information transferred, or stored, as a unit to, from, or on a data storage device; as, to divide a disk into 512-byte blocks.

A broad shaft, or band, or stripe; as, a bar of light; a bar of color.

A number of locations in a random-access memory allocated to storage of specific data; as, to allocate a block of 1024 bytes for the stack.

A vertical line across the staff. Bars divide the staff into spaces which represent measures, and are themselves called measures.

To obstruct so as to prevent passage or progress; to prevent passage from, through, or into, by obstructing the way; - used both of persons and things; - often followed by up; as, to block up a road or harbor; to block an entrance.

The space between the tusks and grinders in the upper jaw of a horse, in which the bit is placed.

To secure or support by means of blocks; to secure, as two boards at their angles of intersection, by pieces of wood glued to each.

A drilling or tamping rod.

To shape on, or stamp with, a block; as, to block a hat.

A gatehouse of a castle or fortified town.

To cause (any activity) to halt by creating an obstruction; as, to block a nerve impulse; to block a biochemical reaction with a drug.

To fasten with a bar; as, to bar a door or gate.

A solid piece of something (usually having flat rectangular sides);

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.

A rectangular area in a city surrounded by streets and usually containing several buildings;

To except; to exclude by exception.

A three-dimensional shape with six square or rectangular sides

To cross with one or more stripes or lines.

A number or quantity of related things dealt with as a unit;

A room or establishment where alcoholic drinks are served over a counter;

Housing in a large building that is divided into separate units;

A counter where you can obtain food or drink;

(computer science) a sector or group of sectors that function as the smallest data unit permitted;

A rigid piece of metal or wood; usually used as a fastening or obstruction or weapon;

An inability to remember or think of something you normally can do; often caused by emotional tension;

Musical notation for a repeating pattern of musical beats;

A simple machine consisting of a wheel with a groove in which a rope can run to change the direction or point of application of a force applied to the rope

An obstruction (usually metal) placed at the top of a goal;

A metal casting containing the cylinders and cooling ducts of an engine;

The act of preventing;

An obstruction in a pipe or tube;

(meteorology) a unit of pressure equal to a million dynes per square centimeter;

A platform from which an auctioneer sells;

A submerged (or partly submerged) ridge in a river or along a shore;

(American football) the act of obstructing someone's path with your body;

The body of individuals qualified to practice law in a particular jurisdiction;

Render unsuitable for passage;

A block of solid substance (such as soap or wax);

Hinder or prevent the progress or accomplishment of;

A portable .30 caliber magazine-fed automatic rifle operated by gas pressure; used by United States troops in World War I and in World War II and in the Korean War

Stop from happening or developing;

A horizontal rod that serves as a support for gymnasts as they perform exercises

Interfere with or prevent the reception of signals;

A heating element in an electric fire;

Run on a block system;

(law) a railing that encloses the part of the courtroom where the judges and lawyers sit and the case is tried;

Interrupt the normal function of by means of anesthesia;

Prevent from entering; keep out;

Shut out from view or get in the way so as to hide from sight;

Render unsuitable for passage;

Stamp or emboss a title or design on a book with a block;

Expel, as if by official decree;

Obstruct;

Secure with, or as if with, bars;

Block passage through;

Support, secure, or raise with a block;

Impede the movement of (an opponent or a ball);

Be unable to remember;

Shape by using a block;

Shape into a block or blocks;

Prohibit the conversion or use of (assets);