noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
barrier method
barrier reef
break the sound barrier (=travel faster than the speed of sound)
crash barrier
go through the pain barrier
▪ Iona reached the final, but she had to go through the pain barrier to get there.
impenetrable barrier
▪ The trees formed a dark and impenetrable barrier.
insurmountable barrier
▪ The language difference proved an insurmountable barrier.
pain barrier
▪ Iona reached the final, but she had to go through the pain barrier to get there.
sound barrier
the language barrier (=the problem of communicating with someone when you do not speak the same language)
▪ Because of the language barrier, it was hard for doctors to give good advice to patients.
the ticket barrierBritish English (= a gate or other barrier at a station that you need a ticket to get through)
▪ John insisted on carrying my case as far as the ticket barrier.
trade barriers (also barriers to tradeformal) (= things that make trade between two countries more difficult or expensive, such as taxes)
▪ The removal of trade barriers will help our trading partnership.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
big
▪ Perhaps the biggest barrier to economic success was the power of the Unions.
▪ The biggest barrier to entry into the video shopping arena has been the lack of available channels offering variety to customers.
▪ And that put the biggest barrier of all between them.
▪ However, the biggest single barrier remains the memory limitation inherent in chip storage.
▪ Problems with childcare remain the biggest barrier to women succeeding at work.
▪ Their age too, was a bigger barrier than either ever thought.
▪ Such efforts reveal one big barrier for the technology, however: it is not yet clear how the economics will work.
cultural
▪ Language was mentioned by 19% and cultural barriers by 12%.
▪ There are, however, many cultural barriers to be surmounted on the path toward a unified and modernized Sierra Leone.
▪ Higher education reinforced the cultural barriers to economic growth.
▪ Class Size: Cultural barriers can be overcome through close personal interaction.
▪ The link worker can help overcome language and cultural barriers between the doctor or nurse and the patient.
▪ Film is capable of rising above the limitations of language and other cultural barriers.
▪ But in general the world religions kept to themselves, separated by linguistic, cultural and geographical barriers that seemed insuperable.
▪ This could do much to remove many of the cultural and trading barriers to free movement.
effective
▪ Excessive regulation may also be an effective barrier to entry, thus reducing competition and providing large profits for the incumbents.
▪ Thus, pre-emptive patenting can be a highly effective strategic entry barrier.
▪ Many respondents felt that the most effective barriers to change were the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour of senior management itself.
▪ In the longer term no effective barriers can be devised.
▪ By progressively melting and falling off, an ablative heat shield can form a very effective protective barrier.
great
▪ The following section examines in greater detail the barriers to increased takeover activity in the Community.
▪ Preoccupation with status itself may be the greatest barrier to intellectual achievement.
▪ The greatest barrier to full voice operation is the difficulty of achieving voice recognition.
▪ There are splendid views of this great alpine barrier to the south from the twisting road between Urnerboclen and Linthal.
high
▪ Moreover, overcapacity reduced margins during the 1980s when the real costs of construction rose, thus creating higher barriers to entry.
▪ There was thought to be a high barrier between hamsters and mice.
impenetrable
▪ A decade ago this was Checkpoint Charlie, one of the few gaps in an otherwise impenetrable barrier a hundred miles long.
▪ But this normally impenetrable barrier is easily breached by fat-soluble ethanol molecules, which slip through like little ghosts.
▪ Yet some people seem to learn to live with imperfection and others find it an impenetrable barrier.
▪ A rose hedge can become a useful, impenetrable barrier if clipped regularly.
▪ As she rounded the final corner, the trees were in front of her, a dark and impenetrable barrier hiding the house completely.
insurmountable
▪ Then it seemed that class differences were an insurmountable barrier, but this too was not the only answer.
▪ When it comes to entrepreneurship there are no insurmountable barriers except those we impose on ourselves.
▪ Yet language difficulties have never been insurmountable barriers.
▪ The cost was an insurmountable barrier for many small businesses, and these new business strategies created many side effects.
▪ For a start, sheer distance put a well-nigh insurmountable barrier be-tween me and my peers.
▪ The railroads overcame what, until then, had been insurmountable barriers of time and distance.
major
▪ There was always a difficulty in obtaining enough currency, a major barrier to trading with the west.
▪ Adoption of Technology Standards Adoption of standards is a major barrier to the I-way construction.
▪ Berstein reinforced the belief that language and culture were major barriers in attracting working-class adults to education.
▪ Security of on-line payments remains a major barrier to this feature.
▪ If they are allowed automatically to keep them, this becomes a major barrier to new entry.
▪ But research suggests that in many or most countries, male attitudes are not a major barrier to family planning.
▪ A major barrier between human beings and digitally stored information had been lifted.
natural
▪ There was an invisible, somehow natural, barrier.
▪ This can result from government regulation or from other natural barriers.
physical
▪ Being a visible physical barrier, the grilles are an excellent deterrent.
▪ These supply constraints are not the usual physical barriers to increased output imposed by the productive potential of the economy.
▪ High status is indicated through inaccessibility, human and physical barriers keeping the rank and file at a distance.
▪ In comparison to the image barriers, the physical barriers are perhaps the more obvious.
protective
▪ However, many new serums act as a protective barrier and seem to improve hair suppleness, too.
▪ Wooden planters filled with annuals formed a low protective barrier around the perimeter.
▪ As a small child my nose just tipped over the protective barriers.
▪ The Rhode Island company also piled up other protective barriers.
▪ The simplest protective barrier is a geographical one, namely to conduct the training away from other centres of activity within the organisation.
▪ Saunders' body was lying against him as he tried to manoeuvre it against the protective barrier.
▪ Ultracare 3 is quickly absorbed into the skin and forms a protective grease-free barrier.
▪ You poke it up and in before the action begins, thus providing a protective barrier against pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases.
psychological
▪ It is less satisfactory if there is a danger of creating a psychological barrier to doing something positive about getting another job.
racial
▪ On the field, the racial barriers are coming down.
▪ Qualified academically to serve their people, they can not do so because of racial barriers bristling in their way.
▪ Baseball has had four black managers since Jackie Robinson broke the sport's racial barrier in 1947.
sound
▪ At the time of his death Campbell was unsuccessfully seeking backers for a jet-driven car to go through the sound barrier.
▪ In 1979, Stanley Barrett broke the sound barrier on land.
technical
▪ The main areas covered by this negotiating group included anti-dumping, technical barriers to trade and government procurement.
▪ The third stage presents the most difficulty for contested bids, as they create very real technical and structural barriers.
▪ Removal of technical barriers Technical barriers to trade arise from differing national product regulations and standards.
▪ Its formation at a time when moves are well-advanced to remove customs and other technical barriers throughout the Community is well-timed.
■ NOUN
crash
▪ William Farrell had seen a Renault 25 car parked beside a crash barrier as he drove past.
▪ It came down against the crash barrier.
▪ They blame his death on a faulty motorway crash barrier.
▪ And the family blames a faulty motorway crash barrier.
▪ Now the council is waiting for the car parks firm to solve the crash barrier problem.
▪ Faults were discovered in the mountings on the crash barriers around the top deck of the car park in July.
▪ It ploughed off the motorway, behind the motorway bridge crash barrier, and into the concrete upright.
language
▪ Then there is the language barrier.
▪ The lack of communication is emphasized by the language barrier.
▪ Schools unwittingly erect a language barrier which must exclude great numbers of parents.
▪ It has crossed language barriers as easily as it has iron curtains and great walls.
▪ It was true they were very quiet which the Girls thought was a combination of shyness and the language barrier.
▪ There was, first, the language barrier.
▪ Because of the language barrier and culture shock, such insights are far too rare.
▪ Confusion caused by language barriers is the most obvious, but beliefs about proper behavior and courtesy also shift across cultural lines.
pain
▪ Instead she has developed a strict routine for short haul trips to get her across her pain barrier.
▪ After that, they reckon, they can face any pain barrier.
▪ He clenched his jaw as the pain barrier seemed to break with every passing second.
reef
▪ In detail barrier reefs consist of whole series of individual reefs and may have small islands on them.
▪ Thus, the fringing reef would be changed into a barrier reef and finally into an atoll if the island subsided completely.
▪ In fact islands with multiple barrier reefs are unknown, although a very few double reefs are known.
tariff
▪ The rich world keeps the South wedded to commodity production by putting up tariff barriers to manufactured goods.
▪ By 1961 internal tariff barriers had been substantially reduced and quota restrictions on industrial products had been largely eliminated.
trade
▪ Their experts wasted no time in cutting trade barriers, limiting government subsidies and selling off state industries.
▪ The sugar program works by limiting domestic production and erecting trade barriers that keep the price of imported sugar high.
▪ As a non-GATT member its goods generally faced higher tariffs and other trade barriers in world markets.
▪ Running counter to mainstream Republican thinking, he is calling for tariffs and new trade barriers to protect jobs.
▪ This echoed a national unease at lowering complicated inter-provincial trade barriers which would upset thousands of special interest groups throughout the country.
▪ It also prevents the types of trade barriers which provide opportunities for corruption.
▪ Other Andean countries, spotting new opportunities in free trade, have agreed to get rid of most trade barriers by 1992.
▪ Northern governments could help by removing the huge trade barriers that the country still faces.
vapour
▪ We had to staple a polythene vapour barrier to the rafters of a pitched roof.
▪ These were sealed in the same way as the rooflights, with air / vapour barrier material and plenty of butyl tape.
▪ The vapour barrier also served to protect the timber from rainfall during the time that the roof was being constructed.
▪ Cut to size, push between rafters, and conceal behind plasterboard lined with vapour barrier.
▪ A vapour barrier is formed by packaging the salt in foil lined boxes.
▪ Various accessories are available for corner trims. Vapour barrier, sealed at overlaps, is laid on top of ply roof deck.
▪ Profiled insulation panels are laid on top of vapour barrier and then covered with Rockwell sheet.
■ VERB
act
▪ However, many new serums act as a protective barrier and seem to improve hair suppleness, too.
▪ The waste form and the cannister should act as barriers for 1000 years each.
▪ You should remember, however, that this can not act as a barrier if you have damp problems.
▪ The salt marshes act as barriers between the sea and land.
▪ They act as a barrier, holding in moisture.
▪ It will act as a barrier to you in putting your own psychological discoveries directly to your reader.
▪ One of them parked across the narrow track leading away from the building; it acted as a barrier.
▪ It is known to act as a barrier to the development of delinquent tendencies, among other things.
break
▪ The Dolphin Centre has maintained its usual popularity with attendances again breaking the one million barrier.
▪ Such action breaks down the artificial barriers of opposition between male and female.
▪ Up to half a dozen may break the barrier.
▪ Pablo Ossio, who helped organize the event, said soccer is a great way to break down barriers.
▪ One touch, one thought, one look was enough to break through the flimsy barrier.
▪ Jackie Robinson breaks color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947.
▪ One way of breaking through the barriers you may have put up to appreciating yourself fully is to play Boast.
▪ John Kennedy broke the barrier against Catholics, Ronald Reagan against the divorced.
build
▪ We are building new obstacles and barriers.
create
▪ Such expenditures create new barriers to competition and serve to concentrate service industries, just as many manufacturing sectors have experienced.
▪ This restriction creates a barrier for global electronic commerce.
▪ He is concerned with the existence of invisible power within the state, creating a barrier between it and the people.
▪ To begin with, these forces have created the most formidable barrier to animal movement on earth.
▪ What aspects of our ecclesiastical tradition facilitate and what create a barrier to our communication attempts?
▪ Moreover, overcapacity reduced margins during the 1980s when the real costs of construction rose, thus creating higher barriers to entry.
▪ You will remember that consonant sounds are made by creating a brief barrier to the flow of breath.
▪ It is the organs of articulation which are used to create this barrier.
cross
▪ We had from the outset a desire to cross barriers that had previously existed and to get involved in community groups.
▪ It has crossed language barriers as easily as it has iron curtains and great walls.
▪ It was only fifty-six miles away and yet I crossed so many barriers to arrive and to leave.
▪ Some experts fear the disease may have crossed the barrier between species again.
▪ It was an instructive couple of hours which showed that sport can cross any barriers.
▪ Waiting behind a stream of cars for the railway crossing barriers to be opened the countryside might seem miles away.
▪ He was equally certain they could cross the barrier between gorgio and Romany together.
▪ Freedom for the eye to cross fences and barriers for mile after mile.
erect
▪ Schools unwittingly erect a language barrier which must exclude great numbers of parents.
▪ The sugar program works by limiting domestic production and erecting trade barriers that keep the price of imported sugar high.
▪ Thus Blacks became a prime source of hostility for white unionists who set about erecting discriminatory barriers.
▪ Work-inhibited children have erected emotional barriers to education and, in response to demands by adults, these barriers become more impenetrable.
▪ Thatcher erect new barrier to monetary unity.
▪ Password Schemes One straight forward security solution, a password scheme, erects a first-level barrier to accidental intrusion.
▪ Other status groups erect less formidable barriers to entry.
▪ Powerful incumbent airlines found three ways to erect strategic entry barriers and consolidate their market power.
form
▪ Blake tried to see but the people had formed a barrier preventing him from seeing what was on the ground.
▪ Wooden planters filled with annuals formed a low protective barrier around the perimeter.
▪ The introduction to this book said that the Himalayas have formed an impassable barrier in the distribution of Eastern wildlife.
▪ It achieves this by forming an ice barrier to lessen heat loss from the ground it covers.
▪ Its wooden centre section can be raised and lowered to form a defensive barrier.
▪ Ultracare 3 is quickly absorbed into the skin and forms a protective grease-free barrier.
▪ We would need a large number to hold these off, form a barrier.
▪ They work by forming an invisible barrier to prevent water loss.
lower
▪ This echoed a national unease at lowering complicated inter-provincial trade barriers which would upset thousands of special interest groups throughout the country.
▪ Crews lowered boom barriers several feet high around the nearby ponds.
▪ This torsion-angle strain would lower the activation-energy barrier for the phosphorylation of His15.
▪ Lowering the cost, yes, but also lowering the barriers that made them hard to use.
▪ After his election in 1984, Leon Febres Cordero lowered import barriers and subsidies, and ran a tight fiscal policy.
▪ Albright will be lowering yet another barrier to the advancement of women in public life.
▪ During phosphorylation, the active-centre torsion-angle strain should facilitate the phosphotransfer reaction by lowering the activation-energy barrier.
overcome
▪ Kellock has since retitled its service Cashflow Finance in an attempt to overcome this barrier.
▪ Each school had to overcome numerous barriers to reform through the collective work of all the faculty.
▪ Elephants elsewhere have been known to overcome both types of barriers that the task force was planning to erect.
▪ They also can help students overcome barriers to success, frustration, and pain, helping them grow to greater self-sufficiency.
▪ Our friendship is a triumph of overcoming every known barrier.
▪ Effective Listening Senders can overcome communication barriers by spending more time listening.
▪ The link worker can help overcome language and cultural barriers between the doctor or nurse and the patient.
▪ People who have overcome extreme barriers deserve a reward and this is the reward I want.
prevent
▪ No one would deny that the barriers which prevent patient access to medicines in the developing world must be broken down.
▪ The environmental coalition also has proposed some type of barrier to prevent further expansion of the underground plume.
▪ Blake tried to see but the people had formed a barrier preventing him from seeing what was on the ground.
▪ But age and language barriers prevent refugees from applying their education to the U.S. labor market.
▪ Fields will be surrounded by barrier strips to prevent phosphate, nitrate, and pesticide pollution of water-courses.
▪ A coating of butter or water soluble barrier film prevents oxidisation and makes subsequent soil removal easier.
▪ It is one of the main barriers preventing the technique from entering the routine microbiological laboratory.
▪ However, even these barriers would hot prevent for ever a corporation determined to maximize its interests.
put
▪ And that put the biggest barrier of all between them.
▪ For a start, sheer distance put a well-nigh insurmountable barrier be-tween me and my peers.
▪ The villagers then, seeing they had no defence anywhere, rushed indoors and put up what pathetic barriers they could.
▪ But she put up a barrier around her, and allowed no one to pass.
▪ They argued that some groups can consciously or unconsciously put up barriers to the public discussion of issues.
▪ The rich world keeps the South wedded to commodity production by putting up tariff barriers to manufactured goods.
▪ We put legal and administrative barriers in their way.
▪ Actually, she influenced every decision I ever made but I always felt she put a barrier between us.
reduce
▪ Changing print technology will simply serve to reduce further these barriers to entry, making even lower print runs economically viable.
▪ Telecommunications technology has reduced the traditional barriers of time and distance.
▪ And they should be demanding that the rich world reduce barriers to imports from poor countries by proceeding with further trade liberalization.
▪ There would appear to be scope for institutions and policy makers to reduce barriers to participation particularly for the financially disadvantaged.
remove
▪ The Government plans to remove the statutory barrier to the formation of partnerships between solicitors and non-solicitors.
▪ Of course, a customs union would spur even more growth if it totally removed barriers even to outsiders.
▪ The theoretical basis for this rests on economic models which predict that there are net welfare gains available from removing these barriers.
▪ From this point of view the struggle to remove barriers could be regarded as the seed bed for human arts.
▪ The government should aim principally to remove barriers between people and economic opportunity.
▪ These benefits are held to stem from three separate but connected effects of removing the barriers to free movement.
▪ Jubilee 2000 remove the barrier of international debt.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
the pain barrier
the sound barrier
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a plexiglas barrier
▪ Only a flimsy barrier stops the crowd from spilling onto the field.
▪ The automatic barrier lifted as we drove up.
▪ The driver slowed down as he approached the police barrier.
▪ The police put up barriers to hold back the crowds.
▪ Their attempt to reduce trade barriers failed.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Baseball has had four black managers since Jackie Robinson broke the sport's racial barrier in 1947.
▪ Historically, three barriers have slowed the development of international networks.
▪ Politically and diplomatically, the barriers against their use by a First World country are massive.
▪ Preoccupation with status itself may be the greatest barrier to intellectual achievement.
▪ Still, the barriers can be crossed.
▪ We have begun the job of raising educational standards and breaking down the barriers between the vocational and the academic routes.