pricker
(ˈprɪkə(r))
Also 4–5 prikiere, -yere, prikere, 5–6 preker, Sc. -ar.
[f. prick v. (ME. prikie) + -er1.]
One who or that which pricks.
1. a. One who pricks or goads; † spec. one who professed to discover if a woman were a witch by sticking pins into her: see prick v. 1 d. Also fig. One who incites, provokes, or stimulates.
| 1382 Wyclif Jer. xlvi. 20 The prickere fro the north [Vulg. stimulator ab aquilone] shal come to hir. 1552 Huloet, Prycker or stynger, stigator. 1565 Cooper Thesaurus, Stimulator..a pricker or stirrer forwarde. 1661 [see prick v. 1 d]. 1836 Sir W. Hamilton Discuss. (1852) 330 For a few holders of the plough, there are many prickers of the oxen. 1865 Geo. Eliot Ess., Infl. Rationalism (1884) 211 It was the regular profession of men called ‘prickers’ to thrust long pins into the body of a suspected witch in order to detect the insensible spot which was the infallible sign of her guilt. |
b. A northern name for the Basking-shark (basking ppl. a. 2), from its habit of lying at the surface with its back-fin projecting. Also (dial.) applied to some species of dog-fish.
| 1701 Brand Descr. Orkney i. 4 When before Peterhead we saw the fins of a great Fish, about a yard above the Water, which they call a Pricker. 1890 P. H. Emerson Wild Life on Tidal Water xxiii. 99 All we got out of a mass of weed and mud..[were] two prickers, and an old mussel. |
2. One who spurs or rides a horse; a rider, a horseman; hence, a mounted warrior or soldier; esp. a light horseman employed as a skirmisher or scout; also, a mounted moss-trooper, a ‘rider’. arch. and Hist.
| 1362 Langl. P. Pl. A. x. 8 A proud prikere [C. xi. 134 prikyere] of Fraunce, princeps huius mundi. 1377 Ibid. B. x. 308 Ac now is religioun a ryder..A priker on a palfray. ? a 1400 Morte Arth. 355 Send prekers to þe price toune, and plaunte there my segge. 1519 W. Horman Vulg. 258 The pryckers be gone to spye, what oure ennemyes go aboute. a 1572 Knox Hist. Ref. Wks. 1846 I. 210 The Erle of Warwik and the Lord Gray..perceaving the host to be molested with the Scotishe preakaris. a 1600 King & Barker 30 in Hazl. E.P.P. I. 5 A preker abowt..yn maney a contre. a 1639 Spottiswood Hist. Ch. Scot. vi. (1655) 401 Iohnston..after the Border fashion, sent forth some prickers to ride, and make provocation. 1785 Grose in Archæologia (1787) VIII. 113 This sort of spur [having only one very long and very thick point] was worn by a body of light horsemen in the reign of Henry VIII. thence called prickers. 1808 Scott Marm. v. xvii, Northumbrian prickers wild and rude. 1894 Tweedie Arabian Horse iii. i. 165 What the cleverest collie is to the Cheviot shepherd gives but a faint idea of what his mare is to the desert pricker. |
3. spec. A mounted attendant at a hunt, a huntsman. Now chiefly in yeoman pricker.
| 1575 Turberv. Venerie 103 If the hart be accompanyed with any other deare, then the pricker on horsebacke must ryde full in the face of him, to trie if he can part them or not. 1586 T. Randolph in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. ii. III. 123 To lend him..a cowple of her Majesties Yeomen prickers and a cowple of the Groomes of the Leese. 1616 Bullokar Eng. Expos., Pricker, a Huntsman on horse⁓backe. 1760 R. Heber Horse Matches ix. 23, 50 l. was run for, free only for the Huntsmen, Yeomen Prickers, and Keepers of Windsor Forest. 1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. I. i. ii, Who is it that the King..now guides? His own huntsmen and prickers. 1891 Daily News 12 June 3/1 At Ascot..the Royal procession..was headed by Lord Coventry, the Master of the Buckhounds, and the whips and yeomen prickers in their picturesque uniform of green and scarlet. |
4. a. An instrument or tool for pricking or piercing.
| 14.. Nom. in Wr.-Wülcker 682/37 Hoc punctorium, a prykker. 1806 Hutton Course Math. I. 80 With the point of a fine pin or pricker, prick through all the corners of the plan to be copied. 1875 T. Seaton Fret Cutting 145 One of the best instruments to use as a pricker is a bit of a knitting needle put into a stout handle, and ground to a fine point. |
b. in many specific applications; as
(a) An awl; a brad-awl (cf. prickal); in Sail-making, a tool for making holes in sails. (b) A goad; a spur. (c) A priming-iron. (d) In Blasting, A metal rod which is placed in the drill-hole during the packing of the charge, leaving when it is withdrawn a touch-hole for firing. (e) A fork or prong used in handling sugar; also, a two-pronged fork used in handling blubber. (f) A surgical instrument. (g) A toothed tool or wheel used for marking equidistant holes for stitching leather, etc. (h) A climbing-iron. (i) A slender iron rod used in sounding bogs, probing for sunken timber, or the like. (j) In some organs, A small upright rod beneath the front end of each of the manual keys, which, when the key is pressed down, transmits the motion to other parts of the mechanism so as to open the valve and admit air to the pipe.
| 1611 Florio, Ag{uacu}cchia,..amongst gunners a pricker or [priming] iron. 1649 G. Daniel Trinarch., Hen. IV, cclxxxviii, The Sharpest prickers for his vse, To drive the Restive Lords. 1678 Moxon Mech. Exerc. No. 6. 111 Pricker is vulgarly called an Awl. 1688 R. Holme Armoury iii. xxii. (Roxb.) 280/1 Sugar Boylers Instruments... A Lofe Pricker or a small Pricker. It much resembles the Shoomakers or Sadlers Aule.., being a long slender Iron sharp pointed, set in a wooden round head or haft hooped at the bottom. 1747 Hooson Miner's Dict. s.v., It is best..to put a little Clay on the top of the hole, upon the Raming fast about the Pricker. 1788 W. Marshall Yorksh. Gloss. (E.D.S.), Pricker, a brad-awl. 1794 Rigging & Seamanship I. 88 Pricker, a small instrument, like a marline⁓spike.., to make the holes with. 1824 J. Mander Derbyshire Miner's Gloss. 54 The Pricker is then withdrawn, and a straw filled with gun-powder, is placed in the hole in its stead, which communicates with the powder in the Chamber. 1836 Uncle Philip's Convers. Whale Fishery 42 The pricker..is used in packing the blubber in casks. 1842 S. Lover Handy Andy iii, Dick poking the touch-hole of the pistol with a pricker. 1852 Seidel Organ 64 These prickers are small pieces of wood a few inches long and one third of an inch thick. 1858 Simmonds Dict. Trade, Pricker,..a toothed instrument used by workmen for stabbing or marking leather, paper, &c. 1869 G. Lawson Dis. Eye (1874) 150 If an iridectomy has to be performed, instead of tearing through the lens capsule with the ordinary pricker, a pair of fine iris forceps is introduced through the corneal wound. 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., Pricker, 5. (Saddlery){ddd}b. A tool used to mark stitch-holes so as to render them uniform in distance. Ibid., Pricker, 4. a long slender iron rod used for probing or sounding the depth of a bog or quicksand. 18.. Ann. Philad. & Pennsylv. II. 20 (Cent.) He had iron prickers to the hands and feet to aid in climbing lofty trees. |
c. Phr. to get (or have) the pricker: to become (or be) angry. Austral. and N.Z. slang.
| 1945 Baker Austral. Lang. vi. 121 A man in a temper is said..to have the dingbats, the pricker or the stirks. 1955 D. Niland Shiralee 102 You've got the pricker properly, eh? You'll knock him into next week, will ya? 1959 G. Slatter Gun in my Hand viii. 91 You'll come a gutzer son I ses... Got the pricker with me. |
† 5. A pricket candlestick: see pricket 2. Obs. rare—1.
| 1552 Inv. Ch. Surrey (1869) 89 Item v candilstyckes ij pryckers and ij standardes and one with ij sockes and a pryckett in the myddes. |
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Add: 6. A thorn, spine, or prickle of a plant. dial. and U.S. colloq.
| a 1876 E. Leigh Gloss. Words Dial. Cheshire (1877) 160 The prickers on a brimble. 1887 T. Darlington Folk-Speech S. Cheshire 300, I say, wench, cost tha tay me a pricker aït o' my fom? 1907 Dialect Notes III. 196 Boys get prickers in their feet when they go barefoot. 1939 C. Morley Kitty Foyle x. 95 She'd [sc. the catbird] come flying through the whole mess of prickers in one clean swoop. 1969 C. Burke God is Beautiful, Man (1970) 122 That's a very pretty rose... It's got prickers on it. 1981 T. Morrison Tar Baby v. 137 There in the moonlight was a basket of pineapples, one of which he rammed into his shirt mindless of its prickers. |