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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



... were so conscious of their bad behaviour as to be afraid of seeing their mother; while Miss Placid, serene in her own innocence, entertained herself for some time with looking at the horse above mentioned, and afterwards with pricking it, till Dinah set her at liberty, which, seeing her good temper, she soon did, and gave her besides some pretty pictures to look at and some fruit to eat, of all which her cousins were deprived. By the next morning Jemima's temple had turned ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... of curiosity you are, my good friend!" said de Jars, leaning one elbow on the table, and twirling the points of his moustache with his hand; "but if I were to wrap my secret round the point of a dagger would you not be too much afraid of pricking your fingers ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... horse and to prick it with a pin. The horse plunged and reared and then set off at a hard gallop, which it continued in spite of its rider's efforts to stop it. When they reached the village, the Hazel-nut child left off pricking the horse, and the poor tired creature pursued its way at a snail's pace. The Hazel-nut child took advantage of this, and crept down the horse's leg; then he ran to his aunt and asked her for a comb. On the way home he met another rider, and did the return journey in exactly the ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... feet; yet always bending Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor; 175 At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears, Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses As they smelt music: so I charm'd their ears, That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns, 180 Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them I' the filthy-mantled pool beyond your cell, There dancing up to the chins, that the foul ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... those were, roaming about knee-deep in heather, catching the rare moths, chasing the squirrels that whisked up the fir stems and mocked us from their high perch, searching the hollow trees for woodpeckers' nests, eating the beech-nuts or pricking our fingers as we tried to open the husks of the Spanish chestnuts that grew by the lake! From among the bulrushes the coots sailed out at our approach, and the tiny dabchick dived so deep that we thought, "This time she must be drowned," when, lo and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various


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