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Barʹnacle

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The Solan goose. The strange tales of this creature have arisen from a tissue of blunders. The Latin pernacʹula is a “small limpet,” and bernacula (Portuguese, bernaca; French, barnache) is the Scotch bren-clake or “Solan goose.” Both words being corrupted into “barnacle,” it was natural to look for an identity of nature in the two creatures, so it was given out that the goose was the offspring of the limpet. Gerard, in 1636, speaks of “broken pieces of old ships on which is found certain spuine or froth, which in time breedeth into shells, and the fish which is hatched therefrom is in shape and habit like a bird.”

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Barley Cap
Barleycorn
Barley-mow
Barley Sugar
Barmecide
Barmecide’s Feast
Barnabas
Barnabites
Barnaby Lecturers
Barnaby Rudge
Barnacle
Barnacles
Barnacles
Barnardine
Barn-burners
Barnet
Barnwell (George)
Baro-Devel
Baron
Baron Bung
Baron Munchausen (pron. Moohnkow-zn)