Note that this is a term whose meaning has been expanded to refer to non-VPS servers very recently. Bare-metal has traditionally meant "without an operating system." It did not mean "a server that is an actual server," because that was the default.

It also does not always "clearly" have this new meaning. Somebody who is used to running programs directly (with no intermediate OS) on hardware might not understand what you're saying, or might ask you to clarify, and you probably shouldn't feel put upon by a totally understandable misinterpretation.

edit: Especially when you keep repeating "directly on hardware" when you mean "not on a VM." VMs also run on hardware. You're saying that you're only running on one OS instead an OS in your OS.