Barnegat Bay is a small brackish arm of the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 30 miles (50 km) long, along the coast of Ocean County, New Jersey in the United States. It is separated from the Atlantic by a long barrier peninsula, as well as by the north end of Long Beach Island. The bay is fed by several small rivers, including the Toms River and Metedeconk River, which empty into the bay through small estuaries along its inner shore. The communities of Toms River, Silverton, and Forked River sit along the river estuaries on the bay.

The bay is entered from the ocean through the Barnegat Inlet, along which sits the Barnegat Lighthouse. The bay is part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, entered on its north end by the Point Pleasant Canal and connecting on the south end with Little Egg Harbor via the small Manahawkin Bay. In a broader sense, the bay is sometimes considered to stretch to the south end of Long Beach Island and to include Little Egg Harbor.

The area surrounding the Barnegat Bay and Barnegat Inlet were described by Henry Hudson, in 1609, as "...a great lake of water, as we could judge it to be ... The mouth of the lake hath many shoals, and the sea breaketh on them as it is cast out of the mouth of it." The bay was originally named in 1614 "Barendegat," or "Inlet of the Breakers," by Dutch settlers, referring to the waterway's turbulent channel. During the American Revolutionary War, the bay was used as refuge by American privateers.

Jacob ter Veldhuis, also known as Jacob TV, is a Dutch avant-garde classical composer. Ter Veldhuis favors tonal, melodic compositions, avoiding the dissonance of some recent classical music. Many of his works build melodies around samples of the human voice, as in Steve Reich's composition 'Different Trains'. Some of his works have been performed by the New York string quartet ETHEL.