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Producing spines; bearing thorns or spines; thorny; spiny.

Full of spines; armed with thorns; thorny.

The quality or state of being spiny or thorny; spininess.

Spinose; thorny.

Having small spines; somewhat thorny.

Full of spines; thorny; as, a spiny tree.

The elastic fibrous skeleton of many species of horny Spongiæ (keratosa), used for many purposes, especially the varieties of the genus Spongia. The most valuable sponges are found in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and on the coasts of Florida and the West Indies.

One of the cells which, in sponges, secrete the spongin, or the material of the horny fibers.

A division of edentates having the body covered with large, imbricated horny scales. It includes the pangolins.

Situated under a horny part or layer.

Fig.: Resembling a thistle or thistles; sharp; pricking. In such a world, so thorny, and where none Finds happiness unblighted, or, if found, Without some thistly sorrow at its side. Cowper.

.) See Elephant's foot, under Elephant. -- Tortoise shell, the substance of the shell or horny plates of several species of sea turtles, especially of the hawkbill turtle. It is used in inlaying and in the manufacture of various ornamental articles. -- Tortoise-shell butterfly (Zoöl.), any one of several species of h…

Having the nostrils prolonged in the form of horny tubes along the sides of the beak; -- said of certain sea birds.

Any ruminant having horns composed of a bony axis covered with a horny sheath; a hollow-horned ruminant.

omprising the petrels, shearwaters, albatrosses, hagdons, and allied birds having tubular horny nostrils.

n elongated, turreted shell, composed of many whorls. They have a rounded aperture, and a horny multispiral operculum.

A thorny leguminous tree (Gleditschia monosperma) which grows in the swamps of the Mississippi valley.

of the genus Ampelis, in which some of the secondary quills are usually tipped with small horny ornaments resembling red sealing wax. The Bohemian waxwing (see under Bohemian) and the cedar bird are examples. Called also waxbird.

A thorny European shrub (Hippophaë rhamnoides) resembling a willow.

An oil pressed by the Arabs from the fruit of a small thorny tree (Balanites Ægyptiaca), and sold to piligrims for a healing ointment. J. Smith (Dict. Econ. Plants).