Word.ws English Dictionary

thornier

thornier is the comparative form of thorny.

Meaning of thorny

Adjective

thorny (comparative thornier, superlative thorniest)

  1. (literally) Having thorns or spines.
    • Tara flour is one of two products made from the seed pods of a thorny shrub native to Peru. One of those, tara gum, has been used safely for years as a thickening agent or stabilizer in human foods.2024 October 3, Sandee LaMotte, “‘I’ve never experienced pain like that’: Consumers pay the price for untested food ingredients”, in CNN
    Synonyms:
    prickly, spiny
  2. (figuratively) Troublesome or vexatious.
    • thorny issues
  3. (figuratively) Aloof and irritable.
    • Come, Jo, don't be thorny. After studying himself to a skeleton all the week, a fellow deserves petting, and ought to get it.1868, Louisa May Alcott, Good Wives

Questions about thornier

What is thornier the comparative form of?
Thornier is the comparative form of thorny.

Words near thornier in the dictionary

  1. Thornhill Park
  2. Thornhills
  3. thornhog
  4. thornhogs
  5. Thornielee
  6. thornier
  7. thorniest
  8. thornily
  9. thorniness
  10. thorninesses
  11. thorning

Source and license

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