Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Zoology A small barb or pointed projection, especially one of the small projections fringing the edges of the barbs of feathers.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A small barb, as of a plant; a little beard. Also barbula.
- n. In ornithology, one of a series of pointed, barb-like processes fringing the barbs of a feather.
- n. The part of a helmet which protects the cheeks and chin.
- n. In botany, the inner row of teeth in the peristome of certain mosses.
Wiktionary
- n. Any of the secondary barbs that form a fringe of small projections on a feather.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A very minute barb or beard.
- n. (Zoöl.) One of the processes along the edges of the barbs of a feather, by which adjacent barbs interlock. See Feather.
Etymologies
- Latin barbula, diminutive of barba, beard; see bhardh-ā- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Through a common magnifying glass each tiny barbule was seen to be ringed with gray and silvery white, so finely that the rings could hardly be seen.”
“Instead, if you were to slice a barbule like a loaf of bread, the resulting cross-section would be shaped like a boomerang.”
“But the fact that the rachis itself is made of barbule-like fibres suggests that the barbules came first.”
“Plus, they aren’t located throughout the barbule but are more distal, or located more toward the end of the barbule.”
““It’s the size, shape, number, and pigmentation of nodes and their placement along the barbule that are key,” he patiently explained.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘barbule’.
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party animals
animal parts
anal fork, electric organ, faecal parasol, sublingua, toothcomb, dewclaw, pope's nose, nerve net, oral sucker, oral arm, squid giant synapse, squid giant axon and 104 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Barbarisms
"An offense against purity of style or language; originally, the mixing of foreign words and phrases in Latin or Greek; hence, the use of words or forms not made according to the accepted usages of...
hisn, hern, gooses, goodest, pled, proven, most of what bilb..., Barbara Bush, unbarred barbs, black sheep, uncut, frizzly barbs, barbarisms and 16 more...
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Dinosaurs, extended
At first, this was a list for things found in Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History by David E. Fastovsky. But now it's degenerated a bit to contain anything dinosaur or fossil related.
disarticulate, body fossil, trace fossil, apatite, soft anatomy, permineralization, replacement, articulated, disarticulated, intestine’s-eye view, ichnofossil, paleoenvironment and 270 more...
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Things Avian
Wordies relating to birdies. :-)
calidrid, corvid, avian, avifauna, beak, brood, aerie, altricial, albumen, winged, wattle, covey and 217 more...
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Pogonology
mustache, beard, soul patch, goatee, vandyke, barbule, sideburns, cookie duster, flavor saver, mutton chops, handlebar, fu manchu and 9 more...
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feather measures
panache, pinnacle, quill, pinnate, plume, calamus, hackle, fledge, plumule, rachis, vexillum, comatulid and 37 more...
Tweets
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