Prickish

adj, slang

adj, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    having the characteristics of a prick; being unpleasant, rude or annoying. informal, vulgar

    "The lost cause of psychoanalysis, so infused with a non-intellectual bias, dominated by partisan interests, and characterized by a stunning degree of ill-will and prickish behaviour, has finally made way for a new cause – actually an old one – that of rigorous, informed scholarship."

Example

More examples

"The lost cause of psychoanalysis, so infused with a non-intellectual bias, dominated by partisan interests, and characterized by a stunning degree of ill-will and prickish behaviour, has finally made way for a new cause – actually an old one – that of rigorous, informed scholarship."

Etymology

From prick + -ish.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.