barnacle > define

noun

• Marine crustaceans with feathery food-catching appendages; free-swimming as larvae; as adults form a hard shell and live attached to submerged surfaces.
  • synonyms: cirriped, cirripede
• European goose smaller than the brant; breeds in the far north.
  • synonyms: barnacle goose, Branta leucopsis

• (n.) An instrument for pinching a horse's nose, and thus restraining him.
• (n.) Any cirriped crustacean adhering to rocks, floating timber, ships, etc., especially (a) the sessile species (genus Balanus and allies), and (b) the stalked or goose barnacles (genus Lepas and allies). See Cirripedia, and Goose barnacle.
• (n.) A bernicle goose.
• (sing.) Spectacles; -- so called from their resemblance to the barnacles used by farriers.