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That which pricks, penetrates, or punctures; a sharp and slender thing; a pointed instrument; a goad; a spur, etc.; a point; a skewer. Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary. Shak. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Acts ix. 5.

Having erect, pointed ears; -- said of certain dogs. Thou prick-eared cur of Iceland. Shak.

One who, or that which, pricks; a pointed instrument; a sharp point; a prickle.

A buck in his second year. See Note under 3d Buck. Shak.

The act of piercing or puncturing with a sharp point. "There is that speaketh like the prickings of a sword." Prov. xii. 18 [1583].

The first coating of plaster in work of three coats upon laths. Its surface is scratched once to form a better key for the next coat. In the United States called scratch coat. Brande & C.

A little prick; a small, sharp point; a fine, sharp process or projection, as from the skin of an animal, the bark of a plant, etc.; a spine. Bacon.

The stickleback.

The quality of being prickly, or of having many prickles.

Prickly. [Obs.] Spenser.

A tailor; -- so called in contempt. [Old slang] L'Estrange.

Full of sharp points or prickles; armed or covered with prickles; as, a prickly shrub. Prickly ash (Bot.), a prickly shrub (Xanthoxylum Americanum) with yellowish flowers appearing with the leaves. All parts of the plant are pungent and aromatic. The southern species is X. Carolinianum. Gray. -- Prickly heat (Med.), a…

A name given to several species of stonecrop, used as ingredients of vermifuge medicines. See Stonecrop.

A pointed steel punch, to prick a mark on metal.

An arrow. [Obs.]

called from the points or dots with which it is noted down. [Obs.] He fights as you sing pricksong. Shak.

A shrub (Euonymus Europæus); -- so named from the use of its wood for goads, skewers, and shoe pegs. Called also spindle tree.

Stiff and sharp; prickly. Holland.

Upraised; erect; -- said of the ears of an animal. Mason.

A prickle.