Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • The Mediterranean coastal area of Barbary and the Barbary States.
  • A waterfront area of San Francisco, California, in the years after the 1849 gold rush. It was notorious for its gambling dens, saloons, brothels, and disreputable boarding houses.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun The Mediterranean region off the coast of North Africa, once notorious as a haven for pirates
  • proper noun by extension A waterfront area of San Francisco at the time of the gold rush

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the Mediterranean coast of northern Africa that was famous for its Moorish pirates
  • noun a part of a city that is notorious for gambling dens and brothels and saloons and riotous night life (especially the waterfront of San Francisco after the gold rush of 1849)

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Not even the six major fires that raged through the city between 1848 and 1851—many of them set by an organized gang of transplanted Australian criminals known as the Sydney Ducks—could slow the explosive urban development, which stretched from the dockside red-light district known as the Barbary Coast to the nouveau riche mansions on 338-foot-high Nob Hill, located above Chinatown and the financial district.

    LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY JR. ROY MORRIS 2010

  • Not even the six major fires that raged through the city between 1848 and 1851—many of them set by an organized gang of transplanted Australian criminals known as the Sydney Ducks—could slow the explosive urban development, which stretched from the dockside red-light district known as the Barbary Coast to the nouveau riche mansions on 338-foot-high Nob Hill, located above Chinatown and the financial district.

    LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY JR. ROY MORRIS 2010

  • These extortionists of the high seas represented the Islamic nations of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers—collectively referred to as the Barbary Coast—and presented a dangerous and unprovoked threat to the new American republic.

    The Last Patriot Brad Thor 2008

  • But to evidence unequivocal that the United States of America was never intended to provide even the first hint of adhesion to any religious orientation: In the latter years of the 1790s and early days and years of the 1800s, the North Africa states along what was known as the Barbary Coast — Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco — were rapaciously raking American shipping.

    The US was NEVER intended to be Christian. Herein is the Documented Truth. 2007

  • The Barbary Coast was a veritable bit of Satan's realm.

    The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire Charles Morris 1877

  • During 18th and 19th centuries this area was known as the Barbary Coast and was feared for its regular piracy of European shipping.

    TravelPod.com TravelStream™ — Recent Entries at TravelPod.com 2010

  • During 18th and 19th centuries this area was known as the Barbary Coast and was feared for its regular piracy of European shipping.

    TravelPod.com TravelStream™ — Recent Entries at TravelPod.com 2010

  • The film will inspire a walking tour to what used to be called the Barbary Coast or over to Dupont Street

    San Francisco Sentinel 2009

  • Less than a 100 years later, the young American nation fought North African pirate strongholds along the so-called Barbary Coast - battles that are recalled in the "shores of Tripoli" stanza in the Marines 'Hymn.

    seMissourian.com Headlines 2008

  • By 1910, San Francisco’s red-light district, known as the Barbary Coast, contained more than 300 concert saloons within a six-block radius, and the South Side of Chicago had more than 285.

    A Renegade History of the United States Thaddeus Russell 2010

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