Word.ws English Dictionary

thorniest

thorniest is the superlative 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 thorniest

What is thorniest the superlative form of?
Thorniest is the superlative form of thorny.

Words near thorniest in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thorniest (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: “thorniest.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thorniest. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.