prickly

Etymology

It is formed from English prickle + -y,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the OED taking it partly from the noun and partly from the verb prickle.^[2] The OED compares the slightly earlier adjective prickling and the older pricky,^[2] and Johnson derived it directly from prick.^[7] The base noun is from Old English pricel (“a goad, a small sharp point”), formed from the base of prician (“to prick”) with an instrumental suffix,^[3][8][9] and corresponds to Middle Low German prickel and Dutch prikkel.^[3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Having or covered with prickles: 1577, in B. Googe's translation of Heresbach's Four Books of Husbandry.^[2][5] Etymonline notes that it was used first of holly leaves.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "full of sharp points", quoting Bacon on the artichoke.^[7] From 1749 it also described a tingling or itching feeling, a use the OED compares with the slightly earlier prickly heat,^[2] the name, from 1736, of an inflammation of the sweat glands, so called for the sensation.^[3] The prickly pear of the cactus is named from 1760, earlier prickle pear (1610s).^[3] The figurative senses arose in the mid-19th century: of a touchy person quick to take offence from 1853, in C. M. Yonge's The Heir of Redclyffe,^[2] and of a topic beset with contentious points from about 1862, in E. Dickinson's poems.^[2] In dialect, compounds named a stickleback (prickly-back, Yorkshire and Lancashire), holly (prickly Christmas, Cornwall) and a hedgehog (prickly-otchon, Lincolnshire), and in West Yorkshire the sun could be called prickly, that is, intense.^[10]

Timeline

• 1577 – having or covered with prickles.^[2][5]
• 1749 – causing a tingling or itching sensation.^[2]
• 1853 – of a person, touchy, quick to take offence.^[2] Etymonline dates the figurative sense to 1862.^[3]
• c. 1862 – of a topic, full of contentious points; hard to deal with.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Covered with prickles or thorns; spiny: a prickly hedge of gorse.^[11][5][2]
2. Causing a stinging or tingling feeling: a prickly wool scarf.^[11][5][2]
3. Easily irritated; touchy or bad-tempered.^[11][5][2]
4. Full of difficulties or points likely to cause dispute; thorny: the prickly question of who pays.^[11][5][2]

Word family

• prickliness
• unprickly
• prickly poppy
• prickly ash
• prickly heat
• prickly pear

Related words

• prick
• prickle

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins