Word.ws English Dictionary

prickle

/ˈpɹɪkəl/

prickle noun: a sharp and often small point, especially that of a plant; a thorn.

prickle: a sharp and often small point, especially that of a plant; a thorn
Image: JJ Harrison, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

prickle (plural prickles)

  1. A sharp and often small point, especially that of a plant; a thorn.
    • The plants that have prickles are, thorns, black and white, briar, rose, lemon-trees,[…]1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “VI. Century.”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William...
    1. A sharp, hard extension of the cortex and epidermis of some plants (such as roses), as distinguished from a thorn.
  2. (figuratively) A tingling sensation of mild discomfort.
  3. (Ulster, in plural) Gooseflesh.
  4. A kind of willow basket.
    • If I had but a pottle of Sacke, like a sharp prickle, / To knock my nose against when I am noddingc. 1623–1624 – 1630s, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Lovers Progres”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC...
    • 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.1851, Henry Mayhew, “Costermongers”, in London Labour and the London Poor
  5. (UK, obsolete) A sieve of hazelnuts, weighing about fifty pounds.
  6. (collective) A group of hedgehogs or porcupines.
    • That honour belongs to a hairy-footed flower bee, a breeding pair of geese, some dragonfly nymphs, a flock of grey wagtails, a prickle of hedgehogs, an armada of newts, a flutter of spring butterflies and a “very cheeky” fox.2026 April 18, Donna Ferguson, “A prickle of hedgehogs and an armada of newts: wildlife settles in at London’s new Queen Elizabeth garden”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 28 Jul 2026
    • It may strike some people as odd, a father-daughter gift of a porcupine (and a dead one, at that), but a prickle of porcupines had become quite the pests around his farm, damaging things and gnawing the bark off of many of the trees.2025 November 16, Anna-Louise Jackson, “Montana Woman Plucks Her Own Quills From Porcupines To Make Unique Jewelry”, in Cowboy State Daily, archived from the original on 28 Jul 2026

Verb

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.
    • Guilt prickled me. It was about to get much worse.2014, J. S. Eades, Promises and Other Broken Things, page 400

prickle meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

prickle in Hindi

A tingling sensation of mild discomfort
चुभन cubhan

prickle in Tamil

கூரியம், சிறுமுள், கூரி

prickle in Urdu

دانا, کانٹا, خار

prickle in Bengali

কাঁটা, সুড়সুড়ি দেওয়ার মতো অনুভূতি
More languagesFewer languages
prickle in Malayalam
മുള്ള് muḷḷŭ
prickle in Kannada
ಮಯ್ಮುಳ್ಳಾಗು
prickle in Vietnamese
gai

Examples of prickle in a sentence

  • The umbo is centromucronate and the mucro forms a distinct prickle (Figs 2E, 3E and 3F ).
  • He ran a hand up the side of his face and winced disapprovingly at the prickle.
  • Static, like electric prickles down her arms.

All 10 example sentences with prickle

Forms of prickle

Noun
pluralprickles
Verb
third-person singular presentprickles
present participleprickling
past participleprickled
pastprickled

Origin of prickle

From Middle English prykkyl, prykyl, from Old English pricel, pricels, pricle (“a prickle, sharp point, bit”), from a conflation of Proto-West Germanic *prikislī and *prikil (“prickle”). By surface analysis, prick + -le. Cognate with West Frisian prikel (“goad, prickle”), Dutch prikkel (“sting, prickle, stimulus”), German Low German Prekel (“wooden stick, poker”), Saterland Frisian prikkelje (“to propel, spur on, goad”). First attested in the Old English period.

Words formed from prickle

Phrases with prickle

Questions about prickle

What does prickle mean?
Prickle means a sharp and often small point, especially that of a plant; a thorn.
What is prickle in Hindi?
Prickle in Hindi is चुभन (cubhan). See Prickle meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is prickle?
Prickle can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce prickle?
Prickle is pronounced /ˈpɹɪkəl/.
What is the plural of prickle?
The plural of prickle is prickles.

Words near prickle in the dictionary

  1. pricking-up
  2. prickingly
  3. prickings
  4. prickish
  5. prickishness
  6. prickle
  7. prickle cell
  8. prickle cells
  9. prickle-cell
  10. prickle-cells
  11. prickleback

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prickle (page history and authors); prickle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); prickle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); prickle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); മുള്ള് (Malayalam) (page history and authors); prickle (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-prickle.wav.

Cite this entry: “prickle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prickle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.