THORNY (thornier, thorniest)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: thornier    , thorniest   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does thorny mean? 

• THORNY (adjective)
  The adjective THORNY has 2 senses:

1. bristling with perplexities

2. having or covered with protective barbs or quills or spines or thorns or setae etc.

  Familiarity information: THORNY used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• THORNY (adjective)

Comparative: thornier   
Superlative: thorniest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Bristling with perplexities

Context example:

the thorny question of states' rights

Similar:

difficult; hard (not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Having or covered with protective barbs or quills or spines or thorns or setae etc.

Synonyms:

barbed; barbellate; briary; briery; bristled; bristly; burred; burry; prickly; setaceous; setose; spiny; thorny

Context example:

setaceous whiskers

Similar:

armed ((used of plants and animals) furnished with bristles and thorns)

Derivation:

thorn (a small sharp-pointed tip resembling a spike on a stem or leaf)

thorniness (the quality of being covered with prickly thorns or spines)

 Context examples 

He had thought of Jo in reaching after the thorny red rose, for vivid flowers became her, and she had often worn ones like that from the greenhouse at home.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

We therefore blocked the entrance to our zareba by filling it up with several thorny bushes, and left our camp with the stores entirely surrounded by this protecting hedge.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Erythrocytes with protoplasmic projections giving the cell a thorny appearance.

(Acanthocyte, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

This is you, who have been as slippery as an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But this night our feet must tread in thorny paths; or later, and for ever, the feet you love must walk in paths of flame!

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

When, following the course of our brook, we at last reached our glade and saw the thorny barricade of our camp, we thought that our adventures were at an end.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Come, Jo, don't be thorny.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

All these things we collected together in the clearing, and as a first precaution, we cut down with our hatchet and knives a number of thorny bushes, which we piled round in a circle some fifteen yards in diameter.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You won't show the soft side of your character, and if a fellow gets a peep at it by accident and can't help showing that he likes it, you treat him as Mrs. Gummidge did her sweetheart, throw cold water over him, and get so thorny no one dares touch or look at you.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

We kept to our camp all day, therefore, Lord John busying himself, with such help as we could give him, in raising the height and thickness of the thorny walls which were our only defense.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)