Other forms: barnacles
A barnacle is a small shellfish that cements itself to rocks and hulls. Scrape the barnacles, barnacle-covered, a goose barnacle.
It is a crustacean rather than a mollusc, and it spends its life glued head down, kicking food into its shell with its legs. The glue is among the strongest natural adhesives known. Barnacles on a hull slow a ship badly and cost fuel.
1nounbarnacleA small shellfish that cements itself to rocks and hulls.
“At low tide, the rocks were covered in barnacles and small snails.”
barnacle is a sea creature.
Middle English bernake, of uncertain origin. The barnacle goose was once believed to hatch from the shellfish.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷr̥H- — hill, mountain
Proto-Celtic
*barannīkos
Medieval Latin
barneca — limpet
fro-nor
bernaque — barnacle
Middle English
barnakille
English, today
barnacle
Built from
unknown From Middle English barnakille, from earlier bernake, bernekke, most likely from fro-nor bernaque (“barnacle”) (compare French barnache), probably from Medieval Latin barneca (“limpet”), probably from cel-gau - (compare Welsh brennig, Irish bairneach), from Proto-Celtic barannīkos, 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 (“rock”) which gave λεπάς (“limpet”). First attestations referred to the goose, with corresponding folklore (q.v.).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA