Word.ws English Dictionary

bristle up

bristle up verb: to become bristly; to stand on end.

Verb

bristle up (third-person singular simple present bristles up, present participle bristling up, simple past and past participle bristled up)

  1. (intransitive) To become bristly; to stand on end
    • Her hairs bristled up.
  2. (intransitive) To become irate; to flare up
    • He bristled up when they made a joke about his heritage.

Forms of bristle up

third-person singular presentbristles up
present participlebristling up
past participlebristled up
pastbristled up

Questions about bristle up

What does bristle up mean?
Bristle up means to become bristly; to stand on end.
What part of speech is bristle up?
Bristle up is a verb.
What is the past tense of bristle up?
The past tense of bristle up is bristled up.

Words near bristle up in the dictionary

  1. bristle brush
  2. bristle brushes
  3. bristle moss
  4. bristle snail
  5. bristle snails
  6. bristle up
  7. bristle worm
  8. bristle worms
  9. bristle-tail
  10. bristle-tails
  11. bristlebill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bristle up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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