Word.ws English Dictionary

bristles up

bristles up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of bristle up.

Meaning of bristle up

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.

Questions about bristles up

What is bristles up the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Bristles up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of bristle up.

Words near bristles up in the dictionary

  1. bristlemouth
  2. bristlemouths
  3. bristler
  4. bristlers
  5. bristles
  6. bristles up
  7. bristlet
  8. bristletail
  9. bristletails
  10. bristlets
  11. bristleweed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bristles up (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “bristles up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bristles_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.