subs. (old).—1. A close companion; a follower that will not be dismissed, a leech; spec. = a decoy swindler cf. BARNARD.
1591. GREENE, A Notable Discovery of Coosnage (1859), 23. Thus doth the Verser and the Setter feign a kind friendship to the Coney … As thus they sit tippling, coms the BARNACKLE and thrusts open the doore … steps back again: and very mannerly saith ‘I cry you mercy, Gentlemen. I thoght a frend of mine had bin heere.’
1607. DEKKER, Northward Hoe, III. Ile cashiere all my young BARNICLES. Ibid. (1806), The Belman of London [GROSART, Works (1885) III. 131]. He that … before counterfeited the dronken Bernard is now sober and called the BARNACLE.
1867. MARK LEMON, Leyton Hall, ix. The man that stood beside thee is old Crookfinger, the most notorious setter, BARNACLE, and foist in the City.
1868. M. E. BRADDON, The Trail of the Serpent, I. i. 7. Slopper found him a species of BARNACLE rather difficult to shake off.
2. (old).—See quot.
1591. R. PERCEVAL, Spanish Dictionary, s.v. Gango, a BARNACLE, one that speaketh through the nose, Chenolopex. [Chenalopex in Pliny, a species of goose.]
3. (old).—a good job, or snack easily got (B. E. and GROSE).
4. (old).—A gratuity given to grooms by the buyers and sellers of horses (B. E. and GROSE).
5. (old).—In pl. = spectacles; BOSSERS (q.v.) GOGGLES (q.v.). Fr. persiennes. [Formerly applied only to spectacles with side pieces of coloured glass, and used more as protectors from wind, dust &c. than as an aid to the sight.]
1572. EDWARDS, Damon and Pithias [DODSLEY, Old Plays (HAZLITT) IV. 81]. These spectales put on. Grim. They be gay BARNACLES, yet I see never the better.
1593. MUNDAY, Def. Contraries, 39. Eye-glasses, otherwise called BERNACLES.
1693. MOTTEUX, Rabelais, V. xxvii. They had BARNACLES on the handles of their faces, or spectacles at most.
1822. SCOTT, The Fortunes of Nigel, i. ‘Give me the BARNACLES, my good youth, and who can say what nose they may bestride in two years hence?’ Ibid. (1823), Peveril, viii. No woman above sixteen ever did white-seam without BARNACLES.
1878. STEPHENSON, Inland Joy, 6. A gleam of spectacles. For though handsome lads, they were all (in the Scotch phrase) BARNACLED.
6. (old).—‘A Brake for unruly Horses Noses’ (B. E.).
7. (old cant).—‘The Irons Fellons wear in Gaol’ (B. E.; DYCHE, GROSE).
