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Barbados

proper noun

  1. main island of Barbados
  2. country in the Western Atlantic
L254125 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /bɑː(ɹ)ˈbeɪ.dɒs/ / /bɑɹˈbeɪ.doʊs/ / /bɑɹˈbeɪ.dəs/

name

Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰers-? Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰéh₂der. Proto-Indo-European *-tosder. Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰéh₂tos Proto-Italic *farβātos Latin barbātus Portuguese barbadoder. Portuguese barbadosbor. English Barbados From Portuguese barbados (“bearded ones”), from barba (“beard”), due to the dense hanging moss or vines in the island.

  1. An island and country in the Caribbean.

verb

Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰers-? Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰéh₂der. Proto-Indo-European *-tosder. Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰéh₂tos Proto-Italic *farβātos Latin barbātus Portuguese barbadoder. Portuguese barbadosbor. English Barbados From Portuguese barbados (“bearded ones”), from barba (“beard”), due to the dense hanging moss or vines in the island.

  1. To press-gang (force into naval service).

    The Barbadian planters […] resorted to shipping in hundreds of Scottish and Irish soldiers who’d been taken prisoner during Oliver Cromwell’s conquest. When that supply ran out, they took to kidnapping children, so many that a new term was coined: “barbadosed” meant the same thing in the late seventeenth century as “shanghaied” would in the twentieth.