▪ I. barnacle, n.1
(ˈbɑːnək(ə)l)
Forms: α. 2 bernac, 5 bernak(e, bernag. β. 4–6 bernacle, 5 barnakylle, -alle, byrnacle, (6 barneckle, burnacle), 7–8 barnicle, 9 bernicle, 4– barnacle.
[ME. bernak, a. OF. bernac ‘camus’; of which bernacle seems to be a dim. form: cf. OF. bernicles in Joinville c 1275, in sense of the instrument of torture (sense 2) as used by the Saracens, for which Marsh has suggested an oriental origin, comparing Pers. baran-dan to compress, squeeze, baranjah kar-dan to inflict torture. But, so far as evidence goes, 1 was the earliest sense, and of western origin. The sense of ‘spectacles’ seems to arise naturally enough from the others, but has been treated by some as distinct, and referred to OF. béricle (since 15th c. bésicle) ‘eye glass,’ originally ‘beryl’:—late L. *bericulus, dim. of berillus, beryllus: it is not easy to trace any phonetic connexion between this and barnacles, even though the mod.F. dialect of Berry has berniques ‘spectacles.’]
1. A kind of powerful bit or twitch for the mouth of horse or ass, used to restrain a restive animal; later, spec. an instrument consisting of two branches joined by a hinge, placed on the nose of a horse, if he has to be coerced into quietness when being shoed or surgically operated upon.
| α [c 1200 Neckam De Utensilibus in Wright Voc. 100 Camum (bernac) vel capistrum (chevestre) sponte pretereo.] c 1440 Promp. Parv. 33 Bernak for horse [1499 bernakill], chamus. 1468 Medulla Gram. in Cath. Angl. 22 Chamus, a bernag for a hors. a 1500 in Wülcker Voc. /572 Chamus, a bernake. |
| β 1382 Wyclif Prov. xxvi. 3 A scourge to an hors, and a bernacle to an asse. 1387 Trevisa Higden Rolls Ser. I. 353 Þey dryueþ hir hors wiþ a chambre ȝerde [virgam cameratam] in þe ouer ende in stede of barnacles. 1483 Cath. Angl. 22/1 Barnakylle, Byrnacle, Barnakalle, camus. 1562 Leigh Armorie (1597) 104 Barnacle..is the chiefest instrument that the smith hath, to make the vntamed horsse gentile. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 251 Barnacles..put upon the Horses nose, to restrain his tenacious fury from biting, and kicking. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. i. i. (1862) I. 245 note The horse..being caught by the nose in barnacles. 1831 Youatt Horse xxii. (1872) 457 The barnacles are the handles of the pincers placed over and enclosing the muzzle. |
2. An instrument of torture applied in a similar way. Also fig.
| [1382 Wyclif 2 Kings xix. 28, I schal putten a cercle in thyn noos thrillis and a bernacle [Coverdale, brydle bitt; 1611 bridle] in thi lippis.] 1625 tr. Gonsalvio's Sp. Inquis. 145 Clapped a Barnacle vpon his tongue, which remained there vntill the fire had consumed it. 1679 Hist. Jetzer Pref., Magistrates may flatter themselves, that with the Barnacles of a strict and well-worded Oath they can hold a Jesuites Nose to the Grind-stone. 1870 Edgar Runnymede 109 To save my body from the bernicles. |
3. colloq. in pl. = spectacles. [Probably from their bestriding and pinching the nose.]
| 1571 Damon & P. in Hazl. Dodsl. IV. 81 These spectacles put on. Grim, They be gay barnacles, yet I see never the better. 1593 Munday Def. Contraries 39 Eye glasses, otherwise called Bernacles. 1693 Motteux Rabelais v. xxvii, They had barnicles on the handles of their faces, or spectacles at most. 1823 Scott Peveril viii, No woman above sixteen ever did white-seam without barnacles. |
▪ II. barnacle, n.2
(ˈbɑːnək(ə)l)
Forms: α. 3 bernekke, 4–5 bernake, 5 bernak, -ack, (? barnagge). β. 5 bernakill, barnakylle, 5– bernacle, 6– barnacle, (7 barnicle, 9 bernicle).
[ME. bernekke, bernake, identical with OF. bernaque, med.L. bernaca, berneka. (Other F. forms bernache, barnache; Pg. bernaca, -acha, -icha, Sp. bernache; med.L. also barnaces, bernesta, barneta, perhaps bad spellings). With the β forms cf. med. or mod.L. bernicla, -ecela, -acula, and mod.F. bernicle, barnacle. Ulterior history unknown.
The earliest attainable forms (omitting barbates in Albertus Magnus and barliates in Vincentius Bellovacensis, which seem too far off) are the Eng. bernekke, Anglo-Lat. bernaca (Giraldus Cambr. c 1175), barneta, ? barneca (Gervase of Tilbury c 1211), berneka (Vincent. Bellovac. 1200–1250). If English, this could only be bare-neck or bear-neck, of which the application is not evident. The history of this word is involved in an extraordinary growth of popular mythology, traced back as far as the 11th or 12th c. by Prof. Max Müller, Lect. Sc. Lang. (ed. 7) II. 583–604. It is there suggested that bernacula might be a variant of *pernacula, a possible dim. of perna ‘a kind of shell-fish,’ afterwards confused with *bernicula, a supposed aphetic form of *hibernicula, which might be applied to the barnacle-goose from its being found in Hibernia. Others seek the source of the primitive bernaca in Celtic, comparing Gaelic bairneach, Welsh brenig, limpets. But as all the evidence shows that the name was originally applied to the bird which had the marvellous origin, not to the shell which, according to some, produced it, conjectures assuming the contrary seem to be beside the mark. The form bernacle, it will be seen, is not found before 15th c., and bernacula seems to be only its modern Lat. adaptation. If med.L. bernecla, bernicla, are earlier, they are suspiciously like erroneous forms of bernecha, bernicha. No connexion with barnacle n.1 can be traced: bernac was masc., bernaque, -ache fem., in Fr.]
1. A species of wild goose (Anas leucopsis) nearly allied to the Brent Goose, found in the arctic seas (where alone it breeds), and visiting the British coasts in winter.
This bird, of which the breeding-place was long unknown, was formerly believed to be produced out of the fruit of a tree growing by the sea-shore, or itself to grow upon the tree attached by its bill (whence also called Tree Goose), or to be produced out of a shell which grew upon this tree, or was engendered as a kind of ‘mushroom’ or spume from the corruption or rotting of timber in the water.
| α a 1227 Neckam in Promp. Parv. 32 De ave que vulgo dicitur bernekke. 1387 Trevisa Higden Rolls Ser. I. 335 Þere beeþ bernakes foules liche to wylde gees; kynde bryngeþ hem forþ wonderliche out of trees. c 1400 Mandeville xxvi. 264 Of the Bernakes..In oure Contree weren Trees that beren a Fruyt, that becomen Briddes fleeynge. c 1440 [see β]. |
| β c 1440 Promp. Parv. 32 Barnakylle byrde [v.r. bernack, bernak], barnacus, barnita, barnites. 1480 Caxton Trevisa's Descr. Brit. 48 Ther ben bernacles, fowles lyke to wylde ghees, whiche growen wonderly vpon trees. Ibid. (1520) 2/2 Men of relygyon eet barnacles upon fastynge dayes bycause they ben not engendred with flesshe. 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas i. vi. (1641) 58/2 So rotten planks of broken ships do change To Barnacles..'Twas first a green tree, then a broken hull, Lately a Mushroom, now a flying Gull. 1599 Hakluyt Voy. II. i. 63 There stand certaine trees vpon the shore of the Irish sea, bearing fruit like unto a gourd, which..doe fall into the water, and become birds called Bernacles. 1653 Walton Angler 189 The Barnacles and young Goslings bred by the Sun's heat and the rotten planks of an old Ship, and hatched of trees. 1674 Ray Water Fowl 95 The Bernacle, Bernicla. 1678 Sir R. Murray in Phil. Trans. XII. 926 Multitudes of little Shells; having within them little Birds perfectly shap'd, supposed to be Barnacles. 1694 Falle Jersey ii. 74 Bernacles..are only seen about the Sea, and in very cold Weather. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. III. 279 The Barnacle not..bred from a shell sticking to ships' bottoms. 1863 Spring in Lapland 362 The brent goose and the bernicle..breed either in Spitzbergen or East Finland. 1870 Pall Mall G. 12 Oct. 12 The barnacle is supposed by simple people to be developed out of the fishy parasite of the same name. |
b. In this sense now often Bernacle Goose, to distinguish it from sense 2.
| 1768 Pennant Zool. (1812) II. 237 The Bernacle Goose. 1848 C. A. Johns Week at Lizard 333 Bernicle Goose. 1882 Proc. Berw. Nat. Club IX. 552 Bernacle Geese have been very abundant. |
2. English name of the pedunculate genus of Cirripedes, which attach themselves to objects floating in the water, especially to the bottoms of ships, by a long fleshy foot-stalk. Sometimes used to include sessile Cirripedes: see acorn-shell.
(This was the ‘shell-fish’ out of which the Barnacle Goose was supposed to be produced, the long feathery cirri protruded from the valves suggesting the notion of plumage. Giraldus Cambrensis had himself seen more than a thousand of them ‘conchylibus testis inclusæ,’ hanging from one piece of timber on the shore.)
| a 1581 Campion Hist. Irel. iii. (1633) 10 Barnacles, thousands at once, are noted along the shoares to hang by the beakes about the edges of putrified timber..which in processe taking lively heate of the Sunne, become water-foules. 1598 Florio, Anitra..the birde that breedes of a barnikle hanging vpon old ships. 1673 Ray Journ. Low C. 290 These Tortoises..had two great bunches of those they call Bernacle-shells sticking..to his back. 1678 Butler Hud. iii. ii. 655 As barnacles turn Soland geese In th' islands of the Orcades. 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1789) Cravan, a barnacle, a small shell-fish..which fastens to a ship's bottom in a long voyage. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. xiv. (1873) 389 Cuvier did not perceive that a barnacle was a crustacean. |
3. fig. A companion or follower that sticks close, and will not be dismissed; a constant attendant.
| 1607 Dekker Northw. Hoe iii. Wks. 1873 III. 39 Ile cashiere all my yong barnicles. 1868 M. E. Braddon Trail Serpent i. i. 7 Slopper found him a species of barnacle rather difficult to shake off. |
† b. Perhaps in this sense used as the cant term for a decoy swindler: see quots., and cf. barnard.
| 1591 Greene Disc. Cozenage (1859) 23 Thus doth the Verser and the Setter feign a kind friendship to the Cony..As thus they sit tipling, coms the Barnackle and thrusts open the doore..steps backe again: and very mannerly saith I cry you mercy Gentlemen, I thoght a frend of mine had bin heere. [See the whole passage.] 1608 Dekker Belman Lond. Wks. 1885 III. 131 He that..before counterfetted the dronken Bernard is now sober and called the Barnacle. |
† 4. One who speaks through his nose. Obs. rare.
| 1591 Percivall Sp. Dict., Gango, a barnacle, one that speaketh through the nose, Chenolopex. [Chenalopex in Pliny, a species of goose.] |
Add: [1.] [b.] Now barnacle goose.
| 1840 Cuvier's Animal Kingdom 263 The Barnacle Goose..with a grey mantle. 1910 Brit. Birds IV. 344 The author discovered a number of Barnacle-Geese in a marsh some ten or fifteen kilometres from the sea. 1959 F. Bodsworth Strange One (1960) i. i. 3 The barnacle goose..had been restless and more than normally alert since the last of the flock moved out the day before on the flight to the Greenland nesting fiords. 1983 Birds Spring 5/1 The barnacle goose was given full protection throughout the whole of Britain. |
▪ III. ˈbarnacle, v.1
[f. barnacle n.1]
trans. To apply a barnacle to (a horse).
| 1861 S. Judd Margaret ii. viii. (1871) 281 They banged him and barnacled him..and the more they did, the more he wouldn't stir. |
▪ IV. ˈbarnacle, v.2
(ˈbɑːnək(ə)l)
[f. barnacle n.2]
trans. To affix with persistent attachment.
| 1863 W. W. Story Roba di R. II. 34 This uncouth structure..is barnacled upon the ruins of the once splendid portico. 1865 Mrs. Whitney Gayworthys xxiv. 236 He barnacled himself to Gershom, now, and shipped with him always. |