prickle

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pɹɪkəl/

• Audio (Southern England)

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prickle (plural prickles)

1. A small, sharp pointed object, such as a thorn.
   • 1631, Francis [Bacon], “VI. Century.”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:

     The plants that have prickles are, thorns, black and white, briar, rose, lemon-trees, […]

2. (botany) On various plants, such as roses and Vachellia, sharp, hard extensions of the cortex and epidermis, informally called "thorns" in colloquial speech.
3. A tingling sensation of mild discomfort.
4. A kind of willow basket.
   • c. 1623–1624 – 1630s, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Lovers Progres”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act III, scene ii, page 80:

     If I had but a pottle of Sacke, like a sharp prickle, / To knock my nose against when I am nodding

   • 1851, Henry Mayhew, “Costermongers”, in London Labour and the London Poor:

     The prickle is a brown willow basket, in which walnuts are imported into this country from the Continent; they are about thirty inches deep, and in bulk rather larger than a gallon measure; they are used only by the vendors of walnuts.

5. (UK, obsolete) A sieve of hazelnuts, weighing about fifty pounds.

• Botanically speaking, many plants commonly thought of as having thorns or spines actually have prickles.

• prickle cell
• prickleless
• pricklelike
• prickleback
• prickly

prickle (third-person singular simple present prickles, present participle prickling, simple past and past participle prickled)

1. (intransitive) To feel a prickle.
2. (transitive) To cause (someone) to feel a prickle; to prick.
   • 2014, J. S. Eades, Promises and Other Broken Things, page 400:

     Guilt prickled me. It was about to get much worse.

• pickler

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prickle

1. inflection of prickeln:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. first/third-person singular subjunctive I
   3. singular imperative