BRISTLE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Bristle

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/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.

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Etymology of 'Bristle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Bristle" Quotes from Famous Books

... only the monstrous sierras of Broadway jagged against the vault. It deepens this incredible panorama into broad sweeps of gold and black and peacock blue which one may file away in memory, tangled eyries of shining windows swimming in empty air. As seen in the full brilliance of noonday the bristle of detail is too bewildering to carry in one clutch of the senses. The eye is distracted by the abysses between buildings, by the uneven elevation of the summits, by the jumbled compression of the streets. In the vastness of the scene one looks in vain for some guiding principle of arrangement ...

— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... a kettle upon the stove rose sharp and strident to the ear. Seven white faces, all turned upward to this man who dominated them, were set motionless with utter terror. Then, with a sudden shivering of glass, a bristle of glistening rifle barrels broke through each window, while the curtains were torn from ...

— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... far as it can be said to have any fixed plan, is still, as ever, that of flying towards the frontiers. In very truth, the only plan of the smallest promise for it! Fly to Bouille; bristle yourself round with cannon, served by your 'forty-thousand undebauched Germans:' summon the National Assembly to follow you, summon what of it is Royalist, Constitutional, gainable by money; dissolve the rest, by grapeshot ...

— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... his hand scraping the bristle on his chin thoughtfully. "Meta, I have the faint hope that the woman is winning over the Pyrran. I think that I saw—perhaps for the first time in the history of this bloody war-torn city—a tear in one of ...

— Deathworld • Harry Harrison

... brief second and third rinsing in the crystal running waters—rubbing with the fragrant towel—slow negligent promenades on the turf up and down in the sun, varied with occasional rests, and further frictions of the bristle-brush—sometimes carrying my portable chair with me from place to place, as my range is quite extensive here, nearly a hundred rods, feeling quite secure from intrusion, (and that indeed I am not at all nervous about, if ...

— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

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