Word.ws English Dictionary

pricklice

pricklice is the plural of pricklouse.

Meaning of pricklouse

Noun

pricklouse (plural pricklice)

  1. (archaic, derogatory) A tailor.
    • When she was under Water, and could call him Pricklouse no longer with her Lips, she held up her Hands over her Head1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC
  2. (archaic, derogatory) A lousy person.
    • that woman […] by no threats or stripes would leave to call her husband pricke-lowse [translating pouilleux], and being cast into a pond and duckt under water, lifted up her hands, and joyning her two thumbs-nailes in act to kill lice above her head, seemed to call him lousie still […]., II.32

Questions about pricklice

What is pricklice the plural of?
Pricklice is the plural of pricklouse.

Words near pricklice in the dictionary

  1. pricklesome
  2. prickless
  3. pricklet
  4. prickletail
  5. pricklets
  6. pricklice
  7. pricklier
  8. pricklies
  9. prickliest
  10. prickliness
  11. pricklinesses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pricklice (page history and authors); pricklouse (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: “pricklice.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pricklice. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.