barnacle Hear it!

barnacle definition

bar·na·cle (bär′nə kəl)

noun

  1. barnacle goose
  2. any member of various orders of saltwater cirriped crustaceans that cement themselves to rocks, wharves, ship bottoms, etc. and to other animals, as whales, after a free-swimming larval stage
  3. a person or thing hard to get rid of

Etymology: ME bernacle, earlier bernak < MIr bairnech & Bret bernik, kind of shellfish: ult. via Gaul *berna, split < IE base *bher-, to slit

Related Forms:

Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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