The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pricking \Prick"ing\, n.
The act of piercing or puncturing with a sharp point. ``There is that speaketh like the prickings of a sword.''
--Prov. xii. 18 [1583].-
(Far.)
The driving of a nail into a horse's foot so as to produce lameness.
Same as Nicking.
A sensation of being pricked.
--Shak.The mark or trace left by a hare's foot; a prick; also, the act of tracing a hare by its footmarks. [Obs.]
Dressing one's self for show; prinking. [Obs.]
Prick \Prick\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Pricked; p. pr. & vb. n. Pricking.] [AS. prician; akin to LG. pricken, D. prikken, Dan. prikke, Sw. pricka. See Prick, n., and cf. Prink, Prig.]
To pierce slightly with a sharp-pointed instrument or substance; to make a puncture in, or to make by puncturing; to drive a fine point into; as, to prick one with a pin, needle, etc.; to prick a card; to prick holes in paper.
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To fix by the point; to attach or hang by puncturing; as, to prick a knife into a board.
--Sir I. Newton.The cooks prick it [a slice] on a prong of iron.
--Sandys. -
To mark or denote by a puncture; to designate by pricking; to choose; to mark; -- sometimes with off.
Some who are pricked for sheriffs.
--Bacon.Let the soldiers for duty be carefully pricked off.
--Sir W. Scott.Those many, then, shall die: their names are pricked.
--Shak. To mark the outline of by puncturing; to trace or form by pricking; to mark by punctured dots; as, to prick a pattern for embroidery; to prick the notes of a musical composition.
--Cowper.-
To ride or guide with spurs; to spur; to goad; to incite; to urge on; -- sometimes with on, or off.
Who pricketh his blind horse over the fallows.
--Chaucer.The season pricketh every gentle heart.
--Chaucer.My duty pricks me on to utter that.
--Shak. -
To affect with sharp pain; to sting, as with remorse. ``I was pricked with some reproof.''
--Tennyson.Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart.
--Acts ii. 3 7. To make sharp; to erect into a point; to raise, as something pointed; -- said especially of the ears of an animal, as a horse or dog; and usually followed by up; -- hence, to prick up the ears, to listen sharply; to have the attention and interest strongly engaged. ``The courser . . . pricks up his ears.''
--Dryden.To render acid or pungent. [Obs.]
--Hudibras.To dress; to prink; -- usually with up. [Obs.]
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(Naut)
To run a middle seam through, as the cloth of a sail.
To trace on a chart, as a ship's course.
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(Far.)
To drive a nail into (a horse's foot), so as to cause lameness.
To nick.
Wiktionary
n. 1 The act of piercing or puncturing with a sharp point. 2 A sensation that pricks. 3 The driving of a nail into a horse's foot so as to produce lameness. 4 (context mining English) A nicking. 5 The mark or trace left by a hare's foot; a prick. 6 The act of trace a hare by its footmarks. 7 (context obsolete English) Dressing oneself for show; prinking. vb. (present participle of prick English)
WordNet
n. the act of puncturing with a small point; "he gave the balloon a small prick" [syn: prick]
Wikipedia
During the height of the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries, common belief held that a witch could be discovered through the process of pricking their skin with needles, pins and bodkins – daggerlike instruments for drawing ribbons through hems or punching holes in cloth.
This practice derived from the belief that all witches and sorcerers bore a witch's mark that would not feel pain or bleed when pricked. The mark alone was not enough to convict a person, but did add to the evidence. Pricking was common practice throughout Europe, but was most prevalent in England and Scotland. Professional witch finders earned a good living from unmasking witches, travelling from town to town to perform their services. Hollow wooden handles and retractable points have been saved from these finders, which would give the appearance of an accused witch's flesh being penetrated to the hilt without mark, blood, or pain. Other specially designed needles have been found with a sharp end and a blunt end. Through sleight of hand, the sharp end could be used on "normal" flesh, drawing blood and causing pain, a process which appeared to mount further evidence against the accused, while the dull end would be used on a supposed witch's mark.
Usage examples of "pricking".
Elusive, dealers in anything that required no great effort, ears pricking for every rumor going, sometimes drunks, seldom druggers, sometimes burnt out, sometimes disaffected, subversive in a passive way.
We had come to within fifty feet of these men when I felt a sudden strange and rapid pricking sensation in one of my fingers.
On the third day, as I got up in the morning, an awful pricking announced the horrid state into which the wretched Melulla had thrown me.
Somewhere up the river, in Tradeford, she would be making pastry dough now, or perhaps pricking a roast full of spices before putting it in one of her heavy black kettles and covering it well, to let it slow cook in the coals all night.
Captain Arbuthnot, pricking his ears, heard the tunding of a drum far away in the woods to the southward.
What chiefly lives in it are certain poignant phrases, certain eloquent bars, a glowing, winey bit of color here, a velvety phrase for the oboe or the clarinet, a sharp, brassy, pricking horn-call, a dreamy, wandering melody for the voice there.
On the bunk above she heard Melia weeping, and her conscience pricking her, she sat up.
There was a pricking sensation as the medication microblasted through his skin.
In these two cases perhaps the pulvinus was accidentally pricked, for on pricking the pulvinus of another cotyledon it rose a little.
Sah-luma flushed an angry red, and Theos, though he knew not why, felt a sudden pricking sense of shame.
Anyone arrogant enough to enter the temple uncleansed would feel cold steel pricking through his flesh, and very soon, the fiery pain of ekkana or some other drug.
Yawning, she extended a pink-toed and frivolously befurred foot to wrap around his fingertip, her claws just pricking the surface of his skin.
Now, as he pondered the puzzle of the multiple earths and the falling seed, Joshua found that long-ago jigsaw cobble pricking his memory.
Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of our way whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no time to make long ones.
The vanguard halted a long bow shot from the hill, and with waving spears and vaunting shouts challenged their enemies to come forth, while two cavaliers, pricking forward from the glittering ranks, walked their horses slowly between the two arrays with targets braced and lances in rest like the challengers in a tourney.