barnacle

UK: /ˈbɑː^rnɪk^əl/ US: /ˈbɑrnəkəl/ ,(bär′nə kəl)

WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2025

bar•na•cle¹ /ˈbɑrnəkəl/   n. [countable]

1. Invertebrates a shellfish living in salt water and attaching itself to ship bottoms and floating timber.

bar•na•cled, adj. 

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025

bar•na•cle¹  (bär′nə kəl), n. 

1. Invertebrates any marine crustacean of the subclass Cirripedia, usually having a calcareous shell, being either stalked (goose barnacle) and attaching itself to ship bottoms and floating timber, or stalkless (rock barnacle or acorn barnacle) and attaching itself to rocks, esp. in the intertidal zone.
2. a person or thing that clings tenaciously.

• perh. a conflation of barnacle barnacle goose with Cornish brennyk, Irish báirneach limpet, Welsh brenig limpets, reflecting the folk belief that such geese, whose breeding grounds were unknown, were engendered from rotten ships' planking 1580–85

bar′na•cled, adj. 

bar•na•cle²  (bär′nə kəl), n. 

1. Usually, barnacles. an instrument with two hinged branches for pinching the nose of an unruly horse.
2. British Terms barnacles, spectacles.

• ?
• Old French
• Middle English bernacle bit, dim of bernac 1350–1400

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

barnacle / ˈbɑːnək^əl/ noun

1. any of various marine crustaceans of the subclass Cirripedia that, as adults, live attached to rocks, ship bottoms, etc. They have feathery food-catching cirri protruding from a hard shell
2. a person or thing that is difficult to get rid of

Etymology: 16th Century: related to Late Latin bernicla, of obscure origin

ˈbarnacled adjective