BARNACLE
barnacle, cirriped, cirripede
(noun) marine crustaceans with feathery food-catching appendages; free-swimming as larvae; as adults form a hard shell and live attached to submerged surfaces
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Noun
barnacle (plural barnacles)
A marine crustacean of the subclass Cirripedia that attaches itself to submerged surfaces such as tidal rocks or the bottoms of ships.
Hypernyms: arthropod, crustacean
The barnacle goose.
(engineering, slang) In electrical engineering, a change made to a product on the manufacturing floor that was not part of the original product design.
(computing, 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.
(software engineering, slang) A deprecated or obsolete file, image or other artifact that remains with a project even though it is no longer needed.
(obsolete, in the plural) 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.
Synonym: twitch
(archaic, British, slang, in the plural) A pair of spectacles.
(slang, obsolete) A good job, or snack easily obtained.
(slang) A worldly sailor.
Synonym: shellback
Verb
barnacle (third-person singular simple present barnacles, present participle barnacling, simple past and past participle barnacled)
To connect with or attach.
To press close against something.
Anagrams
• balancer
Source: Wiktionary
Bar"na*cle, n. Etym: [Prob. from E. barnacle a kind of goose, which
was popularly supposed to grow from this shellfish; but perh. from
LL. bernacula for pernacula, dim. of perna ham, sea mussel; cf. Gr.
ham Cf. F. bernacle, barnacle, E. barnacle a goose; and Ir.
bairneach, barneach, limpet.] (Zoöl.)
Definition: Any cirriped crustacean adhering to rocks, floating timber,
ships, etc., esp. (a) the sessile species (genus Balanus and allies),
and (b) the stalked or goose barnacles (genus Lepas and allies). See
Cirripedia, and Goose barnacle. Barnacle eater (Zoöl.), the orange
filefish.
– Barnacle scale (Zoöl.), a bark louse (Ceroplastes
cirripediformis) of the orange and quince trees in Florida. The
female scale curiously resembles a sessile barnacle in form.
Bar"na*cle, n. Etym: [See Bernicle.]
Definition: A bernicle goose.
Bar"na*cle, n. Etym: [OE. bernak, bernacle; cf. OF. bernac, and Prov.
F. (Berri) berniques, spectacles.]
1. pl. (Far.)
Definition: An instrument for pinching a horse's nose, and thus restraining
him.
Note: [Formerly used in the sing.]
The barnacles . . . give pain almost equal to that of the switch.
Youatt.
2. pl.
Definition: Spectacles; -- so called from their resemblance to the
barnacles used by farriers. [Cant, Eng.] Dickens.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition