(comparative more barnacled, superlative most barnacled)
- Crusted with barnacles.
- (by analogy) Thickly covered in something, as if with barnacles.
- Familiar with the ocean and/or seafaring.
- Old and weathered, particularly with respect to persons or things associated with the ocean.
- (figuratively) Marked by personal experiences; worldly.
- (figuratively) Encumbered with something unnecessary or undesirable, especially through a slow, gradual process of accumulation.
- simple past tense and past participle of barnacle
Variant of barnacle
- barnacle goose
- 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
- a person or thing hard to get rid of
Origin of barnacleMiddle English bernacle, earlier bernak ; from Middle Irish bairnech and amp; Breton bernik, kind of shellfish: ultimately via Gaulish an unverified form berna, split ; from Indo-European base an unverified form bher-, to slit