Bristle
name, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·Middle school level
Definitions
- 1 A stiff or coarse hair on a nonhuman mammal or on a plant.
"the bristles of a pig"
- 2 a stiff hair wordnet
- 3 A chaeta: an analogous filament on arthropods, annelids, or other animals.
- 4 a stiff fiber (coarse hair or filament); natural or synthetic wordnet
- 5 The hairs or other filaments that make up a brush, broom, or similar item, typically made from plant cellulose, animal hairs, or synthetic polymers.
- 1 To rise or stand erect, like bristles. intransitive
"His hair began to bristle with anger when the subject was mentioned."
- 2 react in an offended or angry manner wordnet
- 3 To abound, to be covered with, or to have an abundance of, something, especially something jutting out. intransitive, usually
"the hill of La Haye Sainte bristling with ten thousand bayonets"
- 4 rise up as in fear wordnet
- 5 To be on one's guard or raise one's defenses; to react with fear, suspicion, or distance. intransitive, usually
"The employees bristled at the prospect of working through the holidays."
Show 5 more definitions
- 6 have or be thickly covered with or as if with bristles wordnet
- 7 To make (something) rise or stand erect, like bristles. archaic, obsolete, transitive
"The lion is let looſe inthe night, and the Earle hauing a night-gowne caſt ouer his ſhirt, with his girdle and ſword, and ſo comming downe the ſtaires into the court, meeteth with the lion briſtling his haire, and roaring."
- 8 be in a state of movement or action wordnet
- 9 To cause (someone) to be on one's guard or raise one's defenses. transitive, uncommon
"Your blatant attitude always bristles me."
- 10 To fix a bristle or bristles to. rare
"to bristle a thread"
- 1 Bristol, England (in imitation of the local dialect) humorous, slang
"Correct Way to Speak Bristol."
Example
More examples"Rebel commanders also bristle at what they say is the Western media’s uncritical reporting of the YPG, much of it focused on the Kurdish group’s embrace of secularism and the presence of young women fighters in its ranks."
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 barszcz (“hogweed”)).
Related phrases
More for "bristle"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.