Adjacent Words

Prickly definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

PRICK'LY, a. Full of sharp points or prickles; armed with prickles; as a prickly shrub.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: very irritable; "bristly exchanges between the White House and the press"; "he became prickly and spiteful"; "witty and waspish about his colleagues" [syn: bristly, prickly, splenetic, waspish]
2: having or covered with protective barbs or quills or spines or thorns or setae etc.; "a horse with a short bristly mane"; "bristly shrubs"; "burred fruits"; "setaceous whiskers" [syn: barbed, barbellate, briary, briery, bristled, bristly, burred, burry, prickly, setose, setaceous, spiny, thorny]

Merriam Webster's

adjective (pricklier; -est) Date: 1578 1. full of or covered with prickles; especially distinguished from related kinds by the presence of prickles 2. marked by prickling ; stinging <a prickly sensation> 3. a. troublesome, vexatious <prickly issues> b. easily irritated <had a prickly disposition> • prickliness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. (pricklier, prickliest) 1 (esp. in the names of plants and animals) having prickles. 2 (of a person) ready to take offence. 3 tingling. Phrases and idioms: prickly heat an itchy inflammation of the skin, causing a tingling sensation and common in hot countries. prickly pear 1 any cactus of the genus Opuntia, native to arid regions of America, bearing barbed bristles and large pear-shaped prickly fruits. 2 its fruit. prickly poppy a tropical poppy-like plant, Argemone mexicana, with prickly leaves and yellow flowers. Derivatives: prickliness n.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Prickly Prick"ly, a. Full of sharp points or prickles; armed or covered with prickles; as, a prickly shrub. Prickly ash (Bot.), a prickly shrub (Xanthoxylum Americanum) with yellowish flowers appearing with the leaves. All parts of the plant are pungent and aromatic. The southern species is X. Carolinianum. --Gray. Prickly heat (Med.), a noncontagious cutaneous eruption of red pimples, attended with intense itching and tingling of the parts affected. It is due to inflammation of the sweat glands, and is often brought on by overheating the skin in hot weather. Prickly pear (Bot.), a name given to several plants of the cactaceous genus Opuntia, American plants consisting of fleshy, leafless, usually flattened, and often prickly joints inserted upon each other. The sessile flowers have many petals and numerous stamens. The edible fruit is a large pear-shaped berry containing many flattish seeds. The common species of the Northern Atlantic States is Opuntia vulgaris. In the South and West are many others, and in tropical America more than a hundred more. O. vulgaris, O. Ficus-Indica, and O. Tuna are abundantly introduced in the Mediterranean region, and O. Dillenii has become common in India. Prickly pole (Bot.), a West Indian palm (Bactris Plumierana), the slender trunk of which bears many rings of long black prickles. Prickly withe (Bot.), a West Indian cactaceous plant (Cereus triangularis) having prickly, slender, climbing, triangular stems. Prickly rat (Zo["o]l.), any one of several species of South American burrowing rodents belonging to Ctenomys and allied genera. The hair is usually intermingled with sharp spines.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. Something that is prickly feels rough and uncomfortable, as if it has a lot of prickles. The bunk mattress was hard, the blankets prickly and slightly damp... ADJ 2. Someone who is prickly loses their temper or gets upset very easily. You know how prickly she is. = touchy ADJ 3. A prickly issue or subject is one that is rather complicated and difficult to discuss or resolve. The issue is likely to prove a prickly one. = thorny ADJ

Moby Thesaurus

acanaceous, acanthoid, aciculate, aculeate, aculeolate, agitable, allergic, anaphylactic, annoying, atingle, bad-tempered, barbed, bothersome, brambly, briery, bristly, cantankerous, complex, complicated, contentious, cranky, crawling, crawly, delicate, difficult, edgy, emotional, emotionally unstable, empathetic, empathic, eruptive, excitable, explosive, fractious, fretful, goosy, hard, high-mettled, high-spirited, high-strung, highly emotional, hyperesthetic, hyperpathic, hypersensitive, inflammable, intricate, irascible, irritable, itchy, knotty, mettlesome, miffy, muricate, nervous, nettlesome, overrefined, oversensible, oversensitive, overtender, passible, peevish, perturbable, pettish, petulant, pricking, prickling, pricky, refined, responsive, sensitive, setaceous, setose, short-tempered, skittish, snappish, spiculate, spiky, spinous, spiny, startlish, stinging, supersensitive, sympathetic, tactful, temperamental, tender, testy, tetchy, thin-skinned, thistly, thorny, ticklish, tingling, tingly, touchy, troublesome, volcanic, waspish