BRISTLE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Bristle

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/brˈɪsəl/ Listen

noun

Bristle n.

A short, stiff, coarse hair, as on the back of swine.

(Bot.) A stiff, sharp, roundish hair.

verb

Bristle v. t. (past & past part. bristled; pres. part. bristling)

To erect the bristles of; to cause to stand up, as the bristles of an angry hog; sometimes with up. "Now for the bare-picked bone of majesty Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest." "Boy, bristle thy courage up."

To fix a bristle to; as, to bristle a thread.

Bristle v. i.

To rise or stand erect, like bristles. "His hair did bristle upon his head."

To appear as if covered with bristles; to have standing, thick and erect, like bristles. "The hill of La Haye Sainte bristling with ten thousand bayonets." "Ports bristling with thousands of masts."

To show defiance or indignation.

To bristle up, to show anger or defiance.

See images of 'Bristle'

Etymology of 'Bristle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Bristle" Quotes from Famous Books

... as well as almost any woman. She did really bristle with moral excellences. Mention any good thing she had not done; I should like to see you try! There was no handle of weakness to take hold of her by: she was as unseizable, except in her totality, as a billiard-ball; ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... the radicle instead of travelling straight down the glass made a semicircular bend; but Fig. 52 shows that this may occur when the track is rectilinear. The apex by thus rising, was in one instance able to surmount a bristle cemented across an inclined glass-plate; but slips of wood only 1/40 of an inch in thickness always caused the radicles to bend rectangularly to one side, so that the apex did not rise to this small height ...

— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... woody stump and every spear of root grass searched out from the shelter of the spiny chollas. He glanced once more at his companion, whose face was sullen and unresponsive; there was a well-defined bristle to his short mustache and he rowelled his horse cruelly when he shied ...

— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... their backs begin to bristle, When I shout aloud and whistle! How they kick at every lick That I give them with my stick! ...

— The Gold Thread - A Story for the Young • Norman MacLeod

... there is a shaking in the bushes, and Sauvage and his bledgemates bristle and stand up and show their teeth. Out comes Mamselle Eosalin with a scream to the other ...

— The Skeleton On Round Island - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

More quotes...