[a. F. Barnabé, ad. L. Barnabas.] By-form of the name Barnabas; whence Barnaby-day, Barnaby bright, or long Barnaby, St. Barnabas’ Day, the 11th of June, in Old Style reckoned the ‘longest day’; Barnaby-thistle, the Centaurea solstitialis, so named from its flowering about the 11th of June.
1595. Spenser, Epithal., 266. This day the sunne is in his chiefest hight, With Barnaby the bright.
1645. G. Daniel, Poems, Wks. 1878, II. 49. This short December day, It would spin out, to make my Readers say, Long Barnabie was never halfe so gay.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah, II. xii. 255. Staying the Sun in Gibeon … This was the Barnaby day of the whole world.
1670. Eachard, Cont. Clergy, 32. Barnaby-bright would be much too short for him to tell you all that he could say.
1805. Scott, Last Minstrel, IV. iv. It was but last St. Barnabright They sieged him a whole summer night.
1598. Florio, Calcatrippa, Star-thistle, or Saint Barnabaes thistle.
