thorns

Noun

thorn (plural thorns)

1. A modified branch that is hard and sharp like a spike.
2. Any thorn-like structure on plants, such as the spine and the prickle.
   • On the mountains a few junipers and piñons are found, and cactuses, agave, and yuccas, low, fleshy plants with bayonets and thorns.1895, J[ohn] W[esley] Powell, chapter I, in Canyons of the Colorado, Meadville, PA: Flood & Vincent; republished as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, New York: Dover, 1961...
3. Any shrub or small tree that bears thorns, especially a hawthorn.
   • the white thorn
4. (figuratively) That which pricks or annoys; anything troublesome.
   • There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Corinthians 12:7
5. A letter of Latin script (capital: Þ, small: þ), borrowed from the futhark; today used only in Icelandic to represent the voiceless dental fricative, but originally used in several early Germanic scripts, including Old English where it represented the dental fricatives that are today written th (Old English did not have phonemic voicing distinctions for fricatives).
   • In Old English manuscripts thorn and eth did not have different phonetic values but were used positionally[.]1985, Robert Burchfield, The English Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 175

See all 11 meanings of thorn