TYRO.
Dublin.
Sleeveless (Vol. i., p. 439.).
—Your correspondent might have found "sleeveless errand" explained by Tooke; and from him by Todd and Richardson. It is "an errand without cover or pretext." Skinner, with the word sleeve, A.-S. slife, tegmen, before his eyes, could write, "a liveless or lifeless errand." Earm-slife is "that with which the arm is covered."
Q.
Barbarian (Vol. ii., p. 78.).
—Gibbon observes that—
"In the time of Homer, when the Greeks and Asiatics might probably use a common idiom, the imitative sound of Bar-Bar was applied to the ruder tribes, whose pronunciation was most harsh, and whose grammar was most defective."
Ch. 51. n. 162.
Tooke's suggestion is, that the Gr. βαρυς, strong, with a reduplication of the first syllable βαρ, gave the compound βαρ-βαρος; their great strength being the characteristic for which the barbarians were distinguished by the Greeks. (Div. of Purley, vol. ii. p. 183. 8vo. ed.)