bristle
Americannoun
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bristles
plural
-
one of the short, stiff, coarse hairs of certain animals, especially hogs, used extensively in making brushes.
-
anything resembling these hairs.
verb (used without object)
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bristles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
bristled,
past participle, past
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bristling
present participle
-
to stand or rise stiffly, like bristles.
-
to erect the bristles, as an irritated animal (often followed byup ).
The hog bristled up.
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to become rigid with anger or irritation.
The man bristled when I asked him to move.
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to be thickly set or filled with something suggestive of bristles.
The plain bristled with bayonets. The project bristled with difficulties.
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to be visibly roused or stirred (usually followed byup ).
verb (used with object)
-
bristles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
bristled,
past participle, past
-
bristling
present participle
-
to erect like bristles.
The rooster bristled his crest.
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to furnish with a bristle or bristles.
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to make bristly.
noun
-
any short stiff hair of an animal or plant
-
something resembling these hair
toothbrush bristle
verb
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to stand up or cause to stand up like bristles
the angry cat's fur bristled
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to show anger, indignation, etc
she bristled at the suggestion
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(intr) to be thickly covered or set
the target bristled with arrows
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(intr) to be in a state of agitation or movement
the office was bristling with activity
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(tr) to provide with a bristle or bristles
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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bristlelessadjective
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bristlelikeadjective
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bristlyadjective
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nonbristledadjective
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unbristledadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bristlesimple
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bristlessimple
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have bristledperfect
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has bristledperfect
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am bristlingprogressive
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are bristlingprogressive
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is bristlingprogressive
-
have been bristlingperfect progressive
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has been bristlingperfect progressive
Past
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bristledsimple
-
had bristledperfect
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was bristlingprogressive
-
were bristlingprogressive
-
had been bristlingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bristle
before 1000; Middle English bristel, equivalent to brist ( Old English byrst bristle, cognate with German Borste, Old Norse burst ) + -el diminutive suffix
Explanation
A bristle is a stiff hair — the kind men shave off their face or the kind badgers have all over. Bristle also means to get angry. Tell an animal rights activist you use a badger's bristle shaving brush and you'll get the idea. The emotional meaning of to bristle comes from the fact that most animal bristles used by man are so-called erectile hairs — the ones that stand up on the neck or along the back of animal when it's angry or surprised. A common word associated with bristle is hackle, another name for such erectile animal hairs. Thus the saying "to get one's hackles up," which is pretty much identical to bristling.
Vocabulary lists containing bristle
Instead of "Said": Vexed Verbiage to Express Anger
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"Of Mice and Men"
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But plaintiff attorneys bristle that the program limits their fees at 10% of the award, much less than the 30% to 40% they obtain in contingency fees.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
“I bristle sometimes with the attitude that like, ‘Wow, we’re all going to hell, ha ha ha!’
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
She may bristle at the paperwork or issues of mortality.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 1, 2026
Russia's tone, and the attempt to steal the initiative, will make Ukrainians bristle.
From BBC ● Apr. 9, 2026
For years after that, I used to get nervous whenever I found a toothbrush bristle on my tongue.
From "Boy: Tales of a Childhood" by Roald Dahl
The White House also bristles at Amodei's repeated warnings about the dangers of AI -- including the impact on jobs -- and his calls to regulate its deployment like airlines or banks.
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
Cohen bristles at the term meme stock, telling the Journal it is “a label people use when they don’t want to do the work” on a stock.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2026
The book bristles with insight and originality, interspersing Vara’s more journalistic expositions with excurses and fragments curated from the author’s expansive digital life.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 22, 2025
And while the ship bristles with hi-tech communications equipment, it's what we can't see that is of most concern.
From BBC ● Nov. 19, 2025
And now Nestor, strewing the barley grains, and water drops, pronounced his invocation to Athena and burned a pinch of bristles from the victim.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
Shanahan, McVay’s friend/mentor/nemesis, had bristled at the fact that the 49ers were chosen as the Rams’ opponent because it took away the ability of 49ers fans to descend onto SoFi Stadium.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
In a tense opening set, Sabalenka bristled with frustration early on as unforced errors crept into her game while Pegula settled quickly and struck the ball cleanly.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026
The White House has also bristled at Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's repeated warnings about the dangers of AI -- including the impact on jobs.
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
Aronowitz has bristled at this sort of criticism.
From Salon ● Jul. 9, 2026
Within the city the house of Stephen Byerley bristled with police.
From "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov
Shira Eisenberg, founder of an AI startup for early childhood, thinks the popularity of the phrase reflects a culture of bristling ambition stoked by the AI boom.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
But Lissie Harper said that she was "beyond appalled and bristling with anger to hear that Andrew's killers are soon to be free to roam the streets".
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2026
But in terms of its actual content, the statement was pretty thin gruel, bristling with public relations-style circumlocution and vagueness.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 27, 2026
Or Santos bristling at her new boss’s insistence on clearing her charting backlog while tending cranky patients.
From Salon ● Jan. 8, 2026
As soon as she said that, Mrs. Coulter’s daemon snapped his head up to look at her, and all the golden fur on his little body stood up, bristling, as if it were charged itself.
From "The Golden Compass" by Philip Pullman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
