Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One of the minute, hooked projections extending from and interlocking the barbules of a feather.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In ornithology, a fringing process of the third order of a feather; a fringe of a barbule; one of the processes with which a barbule is fringed, differing from a hamulus or hooklet in not being recurved.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) One of the small hooklike processes on the barbules of feathers.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of the
hooks on thebarbules of afeather thatinterlock adjacent barbs
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[New Latin barbicella, diminutive of Latin barba, beard; see bhardh-ā- in Indo-European roots.]
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Examples
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fbharjo commented on the word barbicel
barbicel a feather's beard
January 16, 2007