| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| barb1 |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  bärb |
| NOUN: | 1. A sharp point projecting in reverse direction to the main point of a weapon or tool, as on an arrow or fishhook. 2. A cutting remark. 3. Zoology One of the parallel filaments projecting from the main shaft of a feather. 4. Botany A short, sharply hooked bristle or hairlike projection. 5. See barbel1. 6. Any of various Old World freshwater fishes of the genus Barbus or Puntius and related genera. 7. A linen covering for a woman's head, throat, and chin worn in medieval times. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: barbed, barb·ing, barbs
To provide or furnish with a barb. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English barbe, from Old French, beard, from Latin barba. See bhardh- - in Appendix I.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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