'barbellulate' originates from New Latin/Botanical Latin, specifically from the diminutive Latin 'barbellula' (a little barb), with the English adjectival suffix '-ate' (used to form adjectives meaning 'having' or 'provided with').

'barbellula' (Latin diminutive of 'barba' meaning 'beard' or 'barb') was used in botanical descriptions as 'barbellula'/'barbellulate' in 18th–19th century Latin diagnoses; it passed into specialized English descriptive usage (botany, zoology, microscopy) as 'barbellulate' to describe surfaces bearing tiny barbs.

Initially, the root referred literally to a 'little beard' or tiny beard-like appendage; over time it came to be used descriptively in scientific English to mean 'having very small barbs or barb-like projections.'