rock barnacle

Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

bar•na•cle

(ˈbɑr nə kəl)

n.

1. any marine crustacean of the subclass Cirripedia, having a shell made up of separate plates, being either stalked (goose barnacle) and attaching itself to ship bottoms and floating timber, or stalkless (rock barnacle).

2. one that clings tenaciously.

[1580–85; perhaps a conflation of barnacle barnacle goose with Cornish brennyk limpet (or Celtic cognates)]

bar′na•cled, adj.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun

rock barnacle - barnacle that attaches to rocks especially in intertidal zones

acorn barnacle, Balanus balanoides

barnacle, cirriped, cirripede - marine crustaceans with feathery food-catching appendages; free-swimming as larvae; as adults form a hard shell and live attached to submerged surfaces

Balanus, genus Balanus - type genus of the family Balanidae

Mentioned in ?

References in classic literature ?

The opercular valves of sessile cirripedes (rock barnacles) are, in every sense of the word, very important structures, and they differ extremely little even in different genera; but in the several species of one genus, Pyrgoma, these valves present a marvellous amount of diversification: the homologous valves in the different species being sometimes wholly unlike in shape; and the amount of variation in the individuals of several of the species is so great, that it is no exaggeration to state that the varieties differ more from each other in the characters of these important valves than do other species of distinct genera.

View in context

Common species include the northern rock barnacle (B.

Barnacle Bonanza

The hot and cold of life on the rocks: Determinants of body temperature in the northern rock barnacle, Semibalanus balanoides.