THORN • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Thorn

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/θɔrn/ Listen

noun

Thorn n.

A hard and sharp-pointed projection from a woody stem; usually, a branch so transformed; a spine.

(Bot.) Any shrub or small tree which bears thorns; especially, any species of the genus Crataegus, as the hawthorn, whitethorn, cockspur thorn.

Fig.: That which pricks or annoys as a thorn; anything troublesome; trouble; care. "There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me." "The guilt of empire, all its thorns and cares, Be only mine."

The name of the Anglo-Saxon letter. It was used to represent both of the sounds of English th, as in thin, then. So called because it was the initial letter of thorn, a spine.

Thorn apple (Bot.), Jamestown weed.

Thorn broom (Bot.), a shrub that produces thorns.

Thorn hedge, a hedge of thorn-bearing trees or bushes.

Thorn devil. (Zool.) See Moloch, 2.

Thorn hopper (Zool.), a tree hopper (Thelia crataegi) which lives on the thorn bush, apple tree, and allied trees.

verb

Thorn v. t. To prick, as with a thorn. (Poetic) "I am the only rose of all the stock That never thorn'd him."

See images of 'Thorn'

Etymology of 'Thorn'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Thorn" Quotes from Famous Books

... now that you will agree that tribulation is every such thing as troubleth and grieveth a man either in body or mind, and is as it were the prick of a thorn, a bramble, or a briar thrust into his flesh or into his mind. And surely, cousin, the prick that very sore pricketh the mind surpasseth in pain the grief that paineth the body, almost as far as doth a thorn sticking in the heart surpass and exceed in pain the thorn ...

— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... three doors away, was a thorn in his side. Three nights in the week a brazen comet struck into a set of lancers, drowning the metallic thud of the piano and compelling his ear to follow the latest popular ...

— Jonah • Louis Stone

... how frightened she was! But the lion seemed in such pain that she was sorry for him, and drew nearer and nearer till she saw he had a large thorn in one foot. She pulled out the thorn and bound up the place, and the lion was grateful, and licked her hand by way of thanks with his ...

— The Pink Fairy Book • Various

... in the crisis of matters, so far as this session of Congress is concerned, in relation to the Telegraph, which absorbs all my time. Perfect enthusiasm seems to pervade all classes in regard to it, but there is still the thorn in the flesh which is permitted by a wise Father to keep me humble, doubtless. May his strength be sufficient for me and I shall fear nothing, and will bear it till He sees fit to remove it. Pray for me, as I do for you, that, if prosperity ...

— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... the poet, son of Etain, what could he do. "It is not hard to say that," said Carpre. "I will make a satire on them at sunrise, and the wind from the north, and I on a hill-top and my back to a thorn-tree, and a stone and a thorn in my hand. And with that satire," he said, "I will put shame on them and enchantment, the way they will not be able to stand against ...

— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

More quotes...