barnacle

Meaning

Noun

1. A marine crustacean of the subclass Cirripedia that attaches itself to submerged surfaces such as tidal rocks or the bottoms of ships.
2. The barnacle goose.
3. (slang) In electrical engineering, a change made to a product on the manufacturing floor that was not part of the original product design.
4. (slang) On printed circuit boards, a change such as soldering a wire in order to connect two points, or addition such as an added resistor or capacitor, subassembly or daughterboard.
5. (slang) A deprecated or obsolete file, image or other artifact that remains with a project even though it is no longer needed.
6. (obsolete) An instrument like a pair of pincers, to fix on the nose of a vicious horse while shoeing so as to make it more tractable.
7. (slang) A pair of spectacles.
8. (obsolete,slang) A good job, or snack easily obtained.
9. (slang) A worldly sailor.

Verb

1. To connect with or attach.
2. To press close against something.

Synonyms

barnacle goose

cirripede

cirriped

Branta leucopsis

oyster

🦪

shellfish

spectacles

👓

breys

horse-brays

horse-barnacles

brize

acorn barnacle

broyes

cockle

glasses

mussel

Translations

percebe

percebe

pouce-pied

είδος στρειδιού

bernache

craca

balano

Rankenfüßer

λεπάς

Rankenfußkrebs

Seepocke

percebe

κολλητσίδα

ανατίφη

Hyphenated as

bar‧na‧cle

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈbɑːnəkl̩/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: barnakille

Cognate with French: barnache

Cognate with Welsh: brennig

Cognate with Irish: báirneac

Cognate with Old Irish: barenn

Cognate with Ancient Greek: λέπας

In summary

Uncertain, with long-debated origin. From Middle English barnakille, from earlier bernake, bernekke, most likely from Old Northern French bernaque (“barnacle”) (compare French barnache), probably from Medieval Latin barneca (“limpet”), probably from Gaulish (compare Welsh brennig, Irish báirneac), from Proto-Celtic *barinākos, from *barinā (“rock, rocky ground”) (compare Old Irish barenn (“boulder”)), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷr̥H- (“hill, mountain”) + Proto-Celtic *-ākos, from Proto-Indo-European *-kos, *-ḱos; for sense development, compare Ancient Greek λέπας (lépas, “rock”) which gave λεπάς (lepás, “limpet”).
First attestations referred to the goose, with corresponding folklore (q.v.).