spiky
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈspaɪki/
rhymes: -aɪki
Forms: form: spikier
form: more spiky
form: spikiest
form: most spiky
Etymology: From spike (“kind of inflorescence in which sessile flowers are arranged on an unbranched elongated axis”) + -y (suffix forming adjectives with the sense “having the quality of”). Spike is derived from Middle English spik, spike (“ear of grain; clove of garlic; plant having spikes; plant of the genus Valeriana, especially Valeriana officinalis; plant of the genus Lavandula, lavender”), from Latin spīca (“ear, head, or spike of grain; plant spike”) (feminine) (also rarely spīcum (neuter) and spīcus (masculine)), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *spey- (“long; sharp; thin”).
Senses: examples: text: [T]he harvest maids began to look knowingly to their partners, who, taking the hint, sprang to their feet, hauled up their sweet abettors, were mated in a moment, and commenced a dance among the stubble, so brisk, that the tall harvest of spiky wheat, standing by, rustled and nodded to them on its golden rods.
ref: 1828 December, T. A., “‘Buy a Broom?’. Chapter I.”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume XXIV, part I, number CXLVI, Edinburgh: William Blackwood; London: T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, page 711, column 2:
text: [T]he irritation [hay fever] has generally been ascribed rather to the odour of sweet-vernal-grass and scented holcus than to the distinctive action of the pollen itself. The latter species is unknown in English meadows, but sweet-vernal-grass is familiar to most of us as the peculiar spiky plant to which new-mown hay owes with us the whole of its delicious fragrance.
ref: 1884 June 13, “Hay Fever”, in The Pall Mall Budget: Being a Weekly Collection of Articles Printed in the Pall Mall Gazette from Day to Day: […], volume XXXII, number 820, London: […] Richard Lambert, […], →OCLC, page 11, column 2:
topics: biology
botany
natural-sciences
glosses: Of a plant: producing spikes (“ears (as of corn); inflorescences in which sessile flowers are arranged on unbranched elongated axes”).
examples: text: Of this kinde, there is founde an other, the Spikes, eares, or torches wherof, are very dubble, ſo as in euery Spyky eare, in ſteede of the little knappes or heades, it bringeth forth a number of other ſmal torches, wherof eche one is lyke to the ſpike or torch of great Plantayne. […] The ſtalkes [of the third kind of plaintain] be creſted or ſtraked, and beare at the toppe fayre ſpiked knappes with white floures or bloſſoms, like the ſpykie knoppes of the middle Plantayne.
ref: 1578, Rembert Dodoens, “Of Plantayne or Waybrede”, in Henry Lyte, transl., A Niewe Herball, or Historie of Plantes: […], London: […] [Henry [i.e., Hendrik van der] Loë for] Gerard Dewes, […], →OCLC, 1st part (Sundry Sortes of Herbes and Plantes), page 91:
text: [D]iverſ hairy Stalks, about a hand breadth high, bearing every one a ſmall long ſpiky Head like to thoſe of the common Plantane, having ſuch like Bloomings and Seed after them.
ref: 1652, Nich[olas] Culpeper, “Bucks-horn Plantane”, in The English Physitian: Or An Astrologo-physical Discourse of the Vulgar Herbs of This Nation. […], London: […] Peter Cole, […], →OCLC, page 22, column 2:
topics: biology
botany
natural-sciences
glosses: Of a plant part: resembling a spike of a plant (see above).
Related terms: spikelet