Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • A country occupying the easternmost island of the West Indies. First inhabited by Arawaks and Caribs, Barbados was held briefly by the Portuguese before being settled by the British in the early 1600s. It became a separate colony in 1885 and gained full independence in 1966. Bridgetown is the capital and the largest city.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A West Indian island, giving its name to a disease, to a cherry, etc.
  • noun (Bot.) a genus of trees of the West Indies (Malpighia) with an agreeably acid fruit resembling a cherry.
  • noun (Med.) a species of elephantiasis incident to hot climates.
  • noun the seeds of the Jatropha curcas, a plant growing in South America and elsewhere. The seeds and their acrid oil are used in medicine as a purgative. See Physic nut.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A country in the Caribbean.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun easternmost of the West Indies about 300 miles to the north of Venezuela
  • noun a parliamentary democracy on the island of Barbados; former British colony; a popular resort area

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Portuguese barbados ("bearded ones") (from Latin barba ("beard"), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰ-eh₂- (“beard”)), due to the dense hanging moss or vines in the island.

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