Crossword clues for thorny
thorny
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Thorny \Thorn"y\, a. [Compar. Thornier; superl. Thorniest.]
Full of thorns or spines; rough with thorns; spiny; as, a thorny wood; a thorny tree; a thorny crown.
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Like a thorn or thorns; hence, figuratively, troublesome; vexatious; harassing; perplexing. ``The thorny point of bare distress.''
--Shak.The steep and thorny way to heaven.
--Shak.Thorny rest-harrow (Bot.), rest-harrow.
Thorny trefoil, a prickly plant of the genus Fagonia ( Fagonia Cretica, etc.).
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Old English þornig; see thorn + -y (2). Figurative sense is attested from mid-14c. Related: Thorniness. Similar formation in Dutch doornig, German dornig.
Wiktionary
a. 1 having thorns or spines 2 troublesome or vexatious 3 aloof and irritable
WordNet
adj. bristling with perplexities; "the thorny question of states' rights"
having or covered with protective barbs or quills or spines or thorns or setae etc.; "a horse with a short bristly mane"; "bristly shrubs"; "burred fruits"; "setaceous whiskers" [syn: barbed, barbellate, briary, briery, bristled, bristly, burred, burry, prickly, setose, setaceous, spiny]
Wikipedia
Usage examples of "thorny".
Thornier sucked in a slow breath between his teeth, stared angrily at his employer for a moment, and seemed briefly ready to unleash an angry blast.
He held up a shredded ribbon of tape for Thorny to see, then flung it angrily across the booth.
A quarter of a mile south of the settlement, in the midst of the forest, an old pandanus tree spread its thorny leaves to the sun.
Peering down through a tangle of thorny pandanus, Minarii gave a sudden low exclamation.
Both men were bleeding from a score of deep scratches, for they were fighting in the thorny pandanus scrub on the very brink of the cliff.
Their lives are interconnected like thorny vines forever circling and recircling the same tree.
The path of the borrower is a thorny one, especially if, like Spennie, his reputation as a payer-back is not of the best.
The Tranny Man burrows under his pillow cursing the night, the dogs, the town, his crazy wife who had suggested in the first place coming to this thorny wilderness, goddamn her!
With the Upper Mutar running over its banks in the Thorny Hell because of the unseasonal weather, there was no dry land at all in the village of Dezaras.
Sweet gum and persimmon and water locust, ironwood and redbud and a dozen other species with buttonbush and thorny dewberry and greenbriar skirting their bases.
For the moment, though, the tangled underbrush along the Chequy Water was still thick with thorny vines, nettles, and tangles of briarwhite and young willow.
To her right was a vast tangle of dreary tamarack and cedar interspersed with deadwood, bracken, and thorny shrubs.
Piet Ricimer knelt and teased a thorny plant loose from the margin of the grainfield surrounding the Fed settlement.
Ricimer knelt and teased a thorny plant loose from the margin of the grainfield surrounding the Fed settlement.
Most of Fo was a vast, fiat waste of rock and scree, with little vegetation but the hardiest, thorny scrubs.