Prickly

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Prickly \Prick"ly\, 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} (Zool.), any one of several species of South
        American burrowing rodents belonging to {Ctenomys} and
        allied genera. The hair is usually intermingled with sharp
        spines.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  prickly
       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},
               {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}, {setose}, {setaceous},
           {spiny}, {thorny}]
       [also: {prickliest}, {pricklier}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  98 Moby Thesaurus words for "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