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bristle

Pronunciation: /ˈbɹɪsəl/

The English word “bristle” has 9 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A stiff or coarse hair on a nonhuman mammal or on a plant.
  2. A chaeta: an analogous filament on arthropods, annelids, or other animals.
  3. The hairs or other filaments that make up a brush, broom, or similar item, typically made from plant cellulose, animal hairs, or synthetic polymers.

verb

  1. To rise or stand erect, like bristles.
  2. To abound, to be covered with, or to have an abundance of, something, especially something jutting out.
  3. To be on one's guard or raise one's defenses; to react with fear, suspicion, or distance.
  4. To make (something) rise or stand erect, like bristles.
  5. To cause (someone) to be on one's guard or raise one's defenses.
  6. To fix a bristle or bristles to.

Etymology

From Middle English bristil, bristel, brustel, from Old English bristl, byrst, *brystl, *byrstel, from Proto-West Germanic *burstilu, diminutive of Proto-West Germanic *bursti, from Proto-Germanic *burstiz (compare Dutch borstel, German Borste (“boar's bristle”), Icelandic burst), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰr̥stís (compare Middle Irish brostaid (“to goad, spur”), Latin fastīgium (“top”), Polish…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.