spiky
/ˈspaɪki/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.75 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of a plant: producing spikes (“ears (as of corn); inflorescences in which sessile flowers are arranged on unbranched elongated axes”).
adj
Of a plant part: resembling a spike of a plant (see above).
adj
Excessively high church (“practising a formal style of liturgy and emphasizing continuity with Catholicism”).
Derogatory; Slang
Example Sentences
- "[T]he harvest maids began to look knowingly to their partners, who, taking the hint, sprang to their feet, hauled up their sweet abettors, were mated in a moment, and commenced a dance among the stubble, so brisk, that the tall harvest of spiky wheat, standing by, rustled and nodded to them on its golden rods."
- "[T]he irritation [hay fever] has generally been ascribed rather to the odour of sweet-vernal-grass and scented holcus than to the distinctive action of the pollen itself. The latter species is unknown in English meadows, but sweet-vernal-grass is familiar to most of us as the peculiar spiky plant to which new-mown hay owes with us the whole of its delicious fragrance."
- "Of this kinde, there is founde an other, the Spikes, eares, or torches wherof, are very dubble, ſo as in euery Spyky eare, in ſteede of the little knappes or heades, it bringeth forth a number of other ſmal torches, wherof eche one is lyke to the ſpike or torch of great Plantayne. […] The ſtalkes [of the third kind of plaintain] be creſted or ſtraked, and beare at the toppe fayre ſpiked knappes with white floures or bloſſoms, like the ſpykie knoppes of the middle Plantayne."
- "[D]iverſ hairy Stalks, about a hand breadth high, bearing every one a ſmall long ſpiky Head like to thoſe of the common Plantane, having ſuch like Bloomings and Seed after them."
- "The ſpiky VVheels thro' Heaps of Carnage tore; / And thick the groaning Axles dropp'd vvith Gore."
- "Three ornithischian dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous of North America may be growth stages of the same one species. Dracorex is smallest and spikiest. Stygimoloch is medium-sized and has the longest horns. Pachycephalosaurus is the biggest and also the least spikiest, but it has the largest, thickest dome."
Etymology
From spike (“kind of inflorescence in which sessile flowers are arranged on an unbranched elongated axis”) + -y (suffix forming adjectives with the sense “having the quality of”). Spike is derived from Middle English spik, spike (“ear of grain; clove of garlic; plant having spikes; plant of the genus Valeriana, especially Valeriana officinalis; plant of the genus Lavandula, lavender”), from Latin spīca (“ear, head, or spike of grain; plant spike”) (feminine) (also rarely spīcum (neuter) and spīcus (masculine)), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *spey- (“long; sharp; thin”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈspaɪki/
- British English: /ˈspaɪki/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Botany.
Inflected Forms
spikier (comparative)
more spiky (comparative)
spikiest (superlative)
most spiky (superlative)
spikey (alternative)