BARRIER REEF • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Barrier reef

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/bˈæriər rif/ Listen

noun

Barrier n.

(Fort.) A carpentry obstruction, stockade, or other obstacle made in a passage in order to stop an enemy.

A fortress or fortified town, on the frontier of a country, commanding an avenue of approach.

pl. A fence or railing to mark the limits of a place, or to keep back a crowd. "No sooner were the barriers opened, than he paced into the lists."

Any obstruction; anything which hinders approach or attack. "Constitutional barriers."

Any limit or boundary; a line of separation. "'Twixt that (instinct) and reason, what a nice barrier!"

Barrier gate, a heavy gate to close the opening through a barrier.

Barrier reef, a form of coral reef which runs in the general direction of the shore, and incloses a lagoon channel more or less extensive.

To fight at barriers, to fight with a barrier between, as a martial exercise. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Barrier reef'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Barrier reef" Quotes from Famous Books

... on my bed with hair brushes, razors and things, they got to talking of Australia; and that was all about fighting too: dog fights, fist fights between bullockies on the long road from Northern Queensland, riots in Perth when the pearlers came in off the Barrier Reef to spend their pay, rows in the big shearing sheds when the Union men objected to unskilled labour—you'd have thought Australia was one big battlefield, with nothing else but fights worth talking of from dawn ...

— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy