» thorny
Adjective (2 meanings)
1. bristling with perplexities.
Example:
- “the thorny question of states' rights”
2. having or covered with protective barbs or quills or spines or thorns or setae etc..
barbed, barbellate, briary, briery, bristled, bristly, burred, burry, prickly, setose, setaceous, spiny, thorny
Examples:
- “a horse with a short bristly mane”,
- “bristly shrubs”,
- “burred fruits”,
- “setaceous whiskers”
Derivationally related form:
- barbel, feeler (noun) - slender tactile process on the jaws of a fish
- bristle (noun) - a stiff fiber (coarse hair or filament)
- bullbrier, greenbrier, catbrier, horse brier, horse-brier, brier, briar, Smilax rotundifolia (noun) - a very prickly woody vine of the eastern United States growing in tangled masses having tough round stems with shiny leathery leaves and small greenish flowers followed by clusters of inedible shiny black berries
- bur, burr (noun) - seed vessel having hooks or prickles
- prickliness, bristliness, spininess, thorniness (noun) - the quality of being covered with prickly thorns or spines
- seta (noun) - a stiff hair or bristle
- spine, thorn, prickle, pricker, sticker, spikelet (noun) - a small sharp-pointed tip resembling a spike on a stem or leaf
thorny is similar to:
- armed (adjective) - (used of plants and animals) furnished with bristles and thorns