prickly

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: prick=ly

CIDE DICTIONARY

prickly, a. 

 Full of sharp points or prickles; armed or covered with prickles; as, a prickly shrub.  [1913 Webster]

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. Opuntia vulgaris, Opuntia Ficus-Indica, and Opuntia Tuna are abundantly introduced in the Mediterranean region, and Opuntia 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 (Zoöl.), any one of several species of South American burrowing rodents belonging to Ctenomys and allied genera. The hair is usually intermingled with sharp spines.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

prickly, adj. (pricklier, prickliest)
1 (esp. in the names of plants and animals) having prickles.
2 (of a person) ready to take offence.
3 tingling.

Idiom

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.

Derivative

prickliness n.

THESAURUS

prickly

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

ROGET THESAURUS

prickly

Sharpness

N sharpness, acuity, acumination, spinosity, point, spike, spine, spicule, spiculum, needle, hypodermic needle, tack, nail, pin, prick, prickle, spur, rowel, barb, spit, cusp, horn, antler, snag, tag thorn, bristle, Adam's needle, bear grass, tine, yucca, nib, tooth, tusk, spoke, cog, ratchet, crag, crest, arete, cone peak, sugar loaf, pike, aiguille, spire, pyramid, steeple, beard, chevaux de frise, porcupine, hedgehog, brier, bramble, thistle, comb, awn, beggar's lice, bur, burr, catchweed, cleavers, clivers, goose, grass, hairif, hariff, flax comb, hackle, hatchel, heckle, wedge, knife edge, cutting edge, blade, edge tool, cutlery, knife, penknife, whittle, razor, razor blade, safety razor, straight razor, electric razor, scalpel, bistoury, lancet, plowshare, coulter, colter, hatchet, ax, pickax, mattock, pick, adze, gill, billhook, cleaver, cutter, scythe, sickle, scissors, shears, pruning shears, cutters, wire cutters, nail clipper, paper cutter, sword, bodkin, belduque, bowie knife, paring knife, bushwhacker, drawing knife, drawing shave, microtome, chisel, screwdriver blade, flint blade, guillotine, sharpener, hone, strop, grindstone, whetstone, novaculite, steel, emery, sharp, keen, acute, acicular, aciform, aculeated, acuminated, pointed, tapering, conical, pyramidal, mucronate, mucronated, spindle shaped, needle shaped, spiked, spiky, ensiform, peaked, salient, cusped, cuspidate, cuspidated, cornute, cornuted, cornicultate, prickly, spiny, spinous, spicular, thorny, bristling, muricated, pectinated, studded, thistly, briary, craggy, snaggy, digitated, two-edged, fusiform, dentiform, denticulated, toothed, odontoid, starlike, stellated, stelliform, sagittate, sagittiform, arrowheaded, arrowy, barbed, spurred, acinaciform, apiculate, apiculated, aristate, awned, awny, bearded, calamiform, cone-shaped, coniform, crestate, echinate, gladiate, lanceolate, lanciform, awl, awl-shaped, lance-shaped, awl- shaped, scimitar-shaped, sword-shaped, setarious, spinuliferous, subulate, tetrahedral, xiphoid, cutting, sharp edged, knife edged, sharp as a razor, keen as a razor, sharp as a needle, sharp as a tack, sharpened, set.

Roughness

N roughness, tooth, grain, texture, ripple, asperity, rugosity, salebrosity, corrugation, nodosity, arborescence, pilosity, brush, hair, beard, shag, mane, whisker, moustache, imperial, tress, lock, curl, ringlet, fimbriae, pili, cilia, villi, lovelock, beaucatcher, curl paper, goatee, papillote, scalp lock, plumage, plumosity, plume, panache, crest, feather, tuft, fringe, toupee, wool, velvet, plush, nap, pile, floss, fur, down, byssus, moss, bur, fluff, knot (convolution), rough, uneven, scabrous, scaly, knotted, rugged, rugose, rugous, knurly, asperous, crisp, salebrous, gnarled, unpolished, unsmooth, roughhewn, craggy, cragged, crankling, scraggy, prickly, arborescent, leafy, well-wooded, feathery, plumose, plumigerous, laciniate, laciniform, laciniose, pappose, pileous, pilose, trichogenous, trichoid, tufted, fimbriated, hairy, ciliated, filamentous, hirsute, crinose, crinite, bushy, hispid, villous, pappous, bearded, pilous, shaggy, shagged, fringed, befringed, setous, setose, setaceous, like quills upon the fretful porcupine, rough as a nutmeg grater, rough as a bear, downy, velvety, flocculent, woolly, lanate, lanated, lanuginous, lanuginose, tomentose, fluffy, against the grain, cabello luengo y corto el seso.