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Definition of "barnacle goose" [barnacle goose]

  • A waterfowl (Branta leucopsis) of northern Europe and Greenland that breeds in the Arctic and has a white face with a black streak between the eyes and bill. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "barnacle goose" in a sentence
  • "MAX MUELLER38 has suggested that this word was really derived from Hibernicula, the name thus referring to Ireland, where the birds were caught; but common opinion associated the barnacle goose with the shell-fish known as the barnacle (which is found on timber exposed to the sea), supposing that the former was generated out of the latter."
  • "[38] See F. MAX MUELLER'S Lectures on the Science of Language (1885), where a very full account of the tradition concerning the origin of the barnacle goose will be found."
Words like "barnacle goose"