[a. F. barbet, prob. OF. barbet ppl. adj. = barbu ‘bearded.’]
1. A little dog with long curly hair, a poodle.
1780. Coxe, Russ. Disc., 236. The Chinese also pay very dear for hounds, grey-hounds, barbets, and dogs for hunting wild boars.
1787. Beckford, Italy (1834), II. 297. Fleeces … as silky as the hair of a barbet.
1801. Hel. Williams, Sk. Fr. Rep., II. xxxvi. Amidst those piles of corpses … was a little barbet-dog.
† 2. A name given by Reaumur and others to a worm covered with tufts of white filaments, which feeds on aphides. Obs.
1753. in Chambers, Cycl. Supp.
3. A family of birds, found in warm countries, distinguished by a short conical bill, with tufts of bristles at its base. (In F., barbu.)
1824. Burchell, Trav., I. 318. Little noisy barbet, which the Hottentots call Hout Kapper (wood cutter).
1880. Wallace, Isl. Life, ii. 27. Barbets are gaily-coloured fruit-eating birds.
