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Pricking   Listen
noun
Pricking  n.  
1.
The act of piercing or puncturing with a sharp point. "There is that speaketh like the prickings of a sword."
2.
(Far.)
(a)
The driving of a nail into a horse's foot so as to produce lameness.
(b)
Same as Nicking.
3.
A sensation of being pricked.
4.
The mark or trace left by a hare's foot; a prick; also, the act of tracing a hare by its footmarks. (Obs.)
5.
Dressing one's self for show; prinking. (Obs.)


verb
Prick  v. t.  (past & past part. pricked; pres. part. pricking)  
1.
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.
2.
To fix by the point; to attach or hang by puncturing; as, to prick a knife into a board. "The cooks prick it (a slice) on a prong of iron."
3.
To mark or denote by a puncture; to designate by pricking; to choose; to mark; sometimes with off. "Some who are pricked for sheriffs." "Let the soldiers for duty be carefully pricked off." "Those many, then, shall die: their names are pricked."
4.
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.
5.
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." "The season pricketh every gentle heart." "My duty pricks me on to utter that."
6.
To affect with sharp pain; to sting, as with remorse. "I was pricked with some reproof." "Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart."
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."
8.
To render acid or pungent. (Obs.)
9.
To dress; to prink; usually with up. (Obs.)
10.
(Naut)
(a)
To run a middle seam through, as the cloth of a sail.
(b)
To trace on a chart, as a ship's course.
11.
(Far.)
(a)
To drive a nail into (a horse's foot), so as to cause lameness.
(b)
To nick.


Prick  v. i.  
1.
To be punctured; to suffer or feel a sharp pain, as by puncture; as, a sore finger pricks.
2.
To spur onward; to ride on horseback. "A gentle knight was pricking on the plain."
3.
To become sharp or acid; to turn sour, as wine.
4.
To aim at a point or mark.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Pricking" Quotes from Famous Books



... it be fair to call him even a sceptic, for that implies a dogma of hopelessness and definite belief in unbelief. But it would be strictly just to describe him at this time, at any rate, as a merely destructive person. He was one whose main business was, in his own view, the pricking of illusions, the stripping away of disguises, and even the destruction of ideals. He was a sort of anti-confectioner whose whole business it was to take the gilt ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... came pricking after as fast as ever he might, and asked Sir Percivale if he saw any knight riding on his black steed. Yea, sir, forsooth, said he; why, sir, ask ye me that? Ah, sir, that steed he hath benome me with strength; wherefore my lord will slay me in what place he ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... mischievous; he even played a cruel trick on Nox while he was asleep. As he sat near to him he kept lightly pricking the dog's lips with a fine needle. The dog would half wake up, shake his head, rub his lips with his paws, and then drop ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... behold Mrs. Bouncer, still with some traces of her late anxiety on her faithful countenance, balancing herself a little unequally on her bow fore-legs, pricking up her ears, with her head on one side, and slightly opening her intellectual nostrils. I send my loving and respectful duty ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... dragged herself to her bed, and lay there, stretched out, still and passive to the torture. Every now and then tears cut their way under her eyelids with a pricking pain. Every now and then the burn in her arm bit deeper; but her mind remained dull to this bodily distress. The trouble of her body, that had so possessed her when Owen laid his hands on her, had passed. She ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair


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