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prickle

Syllabification: (prick·le)
Pronunciation: /ˈprikəl/
Translate prickle | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of prickle

noun

  • a short, slender, sharp-pointed outgrowth on the bark or epidermis of a plant; a small thorn:the prickles of the blackberry bushes
  • a small spine or pointed outgrowth on the skin of certain animals.
  • a tingling sensation on someone’s skin, typically caused by strong emotion:Kathleen felt a prickle of excitement

verb

[no object]
  • (of a person’s skin or a part of the body) experience a tingling sensation, especially as a result of strong emotion:the sound made her skin prickle with horror
  • [with object] cause a tingling or mildly painful sensation in:I hate the way the fibers prickle your skin
  • (of a person) react defensively or angrily to something:she prickled at the implication that she had led a soft and protected life

Origin:

Old English pricel 'instrument for pricking, sensation of being pricked'; related to Middle Dutch prickel, from the Germanic base of prick. The verb is partly a diminutive of the verb prick

prickle in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of prickle in the British & World English dictionary
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