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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

barbel.

A freshwater fish of the genus Barbus or other closely related taxa in the cyprinid family.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈbɑːbəl/UK/ˈbɑːɹbəl/US
  1. A freshwater fish of the genus Barbus or other closely related taxa in the cyprinid family.

  2. A barb or pap under the tongue of a cow or horse.

  3. A whisker-like sensory organ, located around the mouth of certain fish, including carp, catfish, goatfish, sturgeon, and some types of shark.

Where this word comes from

PIE word *bʰardʰéh₂ From Middle English barbel, from Old French barbel, from Vulgar Latin *barbellus, from Late Latin barbulus, diminutive of Latin barbus (“barbel”); barbus itself is from barba (“beard”). By surface analysis, Latin barb(us) (“beard, barbel”) + -el (diminutive suffix), and also, by surface analysis, barb (“sharp, extruding structure”) + -el (diminutive suffix).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.