noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   An iron or steel bar, often with a flattened end which may also be hook-shaped, to be used as a lever to manually force things apart.
2. 2
   a heavy iron lever with one end forged into a wedge wordnet
3. 3
   An electrical circuit that prevents an overvoltage from causing damage.
4. 4
   A type of cocktail made with only Crown Royal whiskey and lemon lime soda.

Verb

1. 1
   To force to move, usually with a crowbar; to prise. transitive

   "He crowbarred the door open."

Synonyms

All synonyms

jimmywrecking barwrecking baraspiratorbarbeam

Example

More examples

"He pried open the locked door with a crowbar."

Etymology

From crow (“crow (bird)" also "metal lever, crowbar”) + bar, probably because the forked end looks like a crow's foot.

Related phrases

crowbar hotel

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.