Logic. [A Latin word (= barbarous things), taken as a mnemonic term, for its three a’s: ‘A’ indicating a universal affirmative proposition.] A term designating the first mood of the first figure of syllogisms. A syllogism in Barbara is one of which both the major and minor premisses, and the conclusion, are universal affirmatives: thus, all animals are mortal; all men are animals; ∴ all men are mortal.
1589. Marprel. Epit., E iiij b. The moode answereth unto Celarent, elder daughter to Barbara.
1837–8. Sir W. Hamilton, Logic, xxii. (1866), I. 444. The unsatisfactory reduction by the logicians of Bocardo to Barbara by an apagogical exposition.
1880. ‘Vernon Lee,’ Stud. 18th. C. Italy, vi. 247. Attempts to turn him into an … ordinary youth by means of teachers, colleges, logical barbaras and baraliptons.
