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Prickly pear   /prˈɪkli pɛr/   Listen
adjective
Prickly  adj.  Full of sharp points or prickles; armed or covered with prickles; as, a prickly shrub.
Prickly heat (Med.), a noncontagious cutaneous eruption of red pimples, attended with intense itching and tingling of the parts affected. It is due to inflammation of the sweat glands, and is often brought on by overheating the skin in hot weather.
Prickly pear (Bot.), a name given to several plants of the cactaceous genus Opuntia, American plants consisting of fleshy, leafless, usually flattened, and often prickly joints inserted upon each other. The sessile flowers have many petals and numerous stamens. The edible fruit is a large pear-shaped berry containing many flattish seeds. The common species of the Northern Atlantic States is Opuntia vulgaris. In the South and West are many others, and in tropical America more than a hundred more. Opuntia vulgaris, Opuntia Ficus-Indica, and Opuntia Tuna are abundantly introduced in the Mediterranean region, and Opuntia Dillenii has become common in India.
Prickly pole (Bot.), a West Indian palm (Bactris Plumierana), the slender trunk of which bears many rings of long black prickles.
Prickly withe (Bot.), a West Indian cactaceous plant (Cereus triangularis) having prickly, slender, climbing, triangular stems.
Prickly rat (Zool.), any one of several species of South American burrowing rodents belonging to Ctenomys and allied genera. The hair is usually intermingled with sharp spines.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prickly pear" Quotes from Famous Books



... covered with foam, entered the plain, and, to his horror and amazement, found that between him and the valley there was a horrible chasm, twenty-five feet in breadth and two hundred feet in depth, with acute angles of rocks, as numerous as the thorns upon a prickly pear. What could he do? His tired horse refused to take the leap, and he could plainly hear the voice of the Indians encouraging each other in ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... dome, Theron looked after her sadly. Then he went again to the brow of the hill and looked down the green slope, clothed thickly with venerable trees, cypress and pine and pepper tree, tamarisk and prickly pear, to the fair city beyond, nestling amid her groves of gray-leaved olive and green-leaved almond, her vineyards, her orchards of peach and ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... pleasantly, "but I can't help it. I'd rather go on as I am, and pin myself to a prickly pear, than shine in society by doing any of these monkey tricks you've been tryin' to put me on to. You say they're 'the thing' and the newest dope and all that, and maybe they're real nice for your sort, but I tell you they're not for mine! It seems to me you know a wonderful lot of fool things that ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... with the large volcanic slopes of Monte Epomeo rising from the sea, is like Catania. Then, across the gulf, are the bold outlines and snowy peaks of the Abruzzi, recalling Albanian ranges. Here, as in Sicily, the old lava is overgrown with prickly pear and red valerian. Mesembrianthemums—I must be pardoned this word; for I cannot omit those fleshy-leaved creepers, with their wealth of gaudy blossoms, shaped like sea anemones, coloured like strawberry and pine-apple cream-ices—mesembrianthemums, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... extensively used in this country for dying,[1] is a beautiful insect abundantly found in various parts of Mexico and Peru. Some of these insects have lately been sent over to Old Spain, and are doing remarkably well on the prickly pear of that country; indeed, they are said to rival even those of Mexico in the quality ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various

... gun-barrel road into a desert green and beautiful with vegetation. Now he passed a blooming azalea or a yucca with clustering bellflowers. The prickly pear and the cat-claw clutched at his chaps. The arrowweed and the soapweed were everywhere, as was also the stunted creosote. The details were not lovely, but in the sunset light of late afternoon the silvery sheen of the mesquite had its ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... as you, William, so let us walk up to it. Oh, I know it now; it is what they call the prickly pear in the West Indies. I am very glad to have found that, for it will be very useful ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat



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