What it means
Bare is an intensifier or quantifier meaning very or a lot of, especially in London youth speech. Bare people means loads of people, bare cold means freezing, bare long means it takes ages. It flips the usual sense of bare meaning empty, and it’s mostly for casual chat, not posh writing. Great for exaggerating, whether you're gassing something up or moaning.
Usage examples
"Got to the market and it was bare people, fam, proper rammed. I tried to grab plantain but I couldn't even squeeze past the aunties."
"There were bare people queueing outside the kebab shop on Brixton Road at half twelve on a Saturday night, the line stretched all the way past the launderette and around the corner near the chicken place on Coldharbour Lane."
"Bare cold this morning on the way to college, mate, the bus took bare long because of the snow on the Old Kent Road, and the heating in the upper deck was broken again like every Tuesday."
"I'm not going Oxford Street on Saturday, bro, it's gonna be bare busy and everyone's moving mad."
"That homework was bare long, swear I sat there all evening and still weren't finished."
Where it comes from
As an intensifier, bare comes from Jamaican Patois, where it means many or much. In London it got woven into Multicultural London English through Caribbean communities, then spread fast in the 1990s and 2000s through schools, estates, pirate radio, garage, and grime till it became everyday youth chat.
Other ways to say it
Editors of this term
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