barnacle

Meanings

1. A marine crustacean of the subclass Cirripedia that attaches itself to submerged surfaces such as tidal rocks or the bottoms of ships.
2. The barnacle goose.
3. In electrical engineering, a change made to a product on the manufacturing floor that was not part of the original product design.
4. 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.
5. A deprecated or obsolete file, image or other artifact that remains with a project even though it is no longer needed.
6. 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.
7. A pair of spectacles.
8. A good job, or snack easily obtained.
9. A worldly sailor.

1. To connect with or attach.
2. To press close against something.

1. A village in Shilton and Barnacle parish, Rugby borough, Warwickshire, England (OS grid ref SP3884).
2. A surname.

Etymology

Uncertain, with long-debated origin. From Middle English barnakille, from earlier bernake, bernekke, most likely from Old Northern French bernaque (“barnacle”) (compare French barnache), probably from Medieval Latin barneca (“limpet”), probably from Gaulish (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 (lépas, “rock”) which gave λεπάς (lepás, “limpet”). First attestations referred to the goose, with corresponding folklore (q.v.).