Forms: 6–7 barracado, baricado, (7 baracadowe, 8 barricadoe), 6– barricado. Pl. -oes, -os. [ad. F. barricade or Sp. barricada (see -ADO), f. F. barrique or Sp. barrica a cask, the first street barricades in Paris being composed of casks filled with earth, paving stones, etc. (Littré: cf. quots. 1590–98, 1602, 1743). Now usually BARRICADE in ordinary prose.]
1. A hastily formed rampart of barrels, wagons, timber, stones, household furniture, or any other materials readily available, thrown up to obstruct the advance of an enemy.
1590. Foxe’s A. & M. (1684), III. 934. Soon after the day of the Barricadoes [la journée des barricades, in Paris, 1588] the Judges of Chastellat adjudged them to be hanged.
1598. Florio, Baricata, Barricada, a baricado or fortification with barels, timber and earth.
1602. Warner, Alb. Eng., X. lviii. 257. Till the Barricados Feast, when Guize vn-vizard was.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 160. He fortified himselfe, not with barres and barricadoes.
1627. Sir R. Cotton, in Rushw., Hist. Coll., I. 467. To block them up by Land, and … to make a Barracado cross the Channel.
1670. Cotton, Espernon, III. XI. 541. Making great Barricado’s upon all the Avenues.
1743. Tindal, Rapin’s Hist. Eng., XVII. (1757), VII. 513. The barricadoes of Paris (note, What occasioned this name was, that the streets were blocked with Barriques, i. e. Hogsheads).
1854. J. Stephens, Centr. Amer. (1854), 252. A barricado constructed with trunks of trees.
2. transf. and fig. Any barrier or obstruction to passage.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., I. ii. 204. No Barricado for a Belly.
1656. Hobbes, Liberty, etc. (1841), 394. As if the needle … were free to point either towards the north or towards the south, because there is not a barricado in its way to hinder it.
1693. Luttrell, Brief Rel., III. 156. Many were drowned in the river, which proved a barricado to the French.
† 3. A natural frontier or boundary line. Obs.
1644. Milton, Jus Pop., 50. Few Nations have prospered when their pride had transported them beyond their native Barricado’s.
4. Naut.; see quots. Now usually BARRICADE.
1675. Teonge, Diary (1825), 52. Wee are fortifying our longeboate with baracadowes.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Barricadoe, a strong wooden rail, supported by … stanchions, and extending, as a fence, across the foremost part of the quarter-deck.
1804. Nelson, in Nicolas, Disp. (1846), VI. 282. If her barricado could be nearly all taken away she would be much better for the service.
