prickly
/pɹˈɪkli/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.03 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Difficult; complicated; hairy or thorny.
adv
In a prickly manner.
Example Sentences
- "The prickly pear is a cactus; you have to peel it before eating it to remove the spines and the tough skin."
- "He has a prickly personality. He doesn't get along with people because he is easily set off."
- "It was a prickly situation."
- "People who are prickly can’t be hurt any more. They’ve had it. So we just have to be prickly to make sure nobody’s going to come in and grab us."
- "Striding across stage in his bright white jacket, his voice soaring and cracking – like Charlie Parker’s – he was nervous but prickly eloquent, caustic yet encouraging."
- "Below, way out on the flat, Blue had seen a light green that could be graze but up here was nothing 'cept all kinds of prickly bushes, and too many of them. Ground-spreading pricklies that reached out to jump at a horse's belly […]"
Etymology
From prickle + -y.
Usage
- Colloquial
- American usage
Inflected Forms
pricklier (comparative)
prickliest (superlative)
more prickly (comparative)
most prickly (superlative)
pricklies (plural)
Derived Forms
Phrases
prickly ash
prickly chaff flower
prickly comfrey
prickly glasswort
prickly hakea
prickly heat
prickly heath
prickly hornwort