BRISTLY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bristly mean? 

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

1. very irritable

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

  Familiarity information: BRISTLY used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BRISTLY (adjective)

Comparative: bristlier   
Superlative: bristliest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Very irritable

Synonyms:

bristly; prickly; splenetic; waspish

Context example:

witty and waspish about his colleagues

Similar:

ill-natured (having an irritable and unpleasant disposition)

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:

bristle (a stiff fiber (coarse hair or filament); natural or synthetic)

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

 Context examples 

Their bristly fur was rimed with frost.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too great a hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the washstand, inflicted a merciless, but happily brief scrub on my face and hands with soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurrying me to the top of the stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was wanted in the breakfast-room.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)