pricking
AmericanEtymology
Origin of pricking
before 1000; Middle English; Old English pricung; see prick, -ing 1
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.
That’s where it started when I was pricking that bubble of comedians who think they’re changing the world.
From Los Angeles Times • May 27, 2025
It is only then, once you are still, that a now low, whipping wind, riddled with sand begins pricking and abrading your skin and collecting in the pages of your novel; it is intolerable.
From Salon • Apr. 25, 2025
"You're pricking pomposity and you're exposing hypocrisy. That's the point of satire."
From BBC • Apr. 16, 2025
Blood obtained by pricking a baby’s heel was collected on filter paper and tested for phenylketonuria, a rare metabolic condition that, if untreated, causes intellectual disability.
From Scientific American • Nov. 13, 2023
I shook my head and started patting on my legs, doing my best to ignore the pricking feeling in my abdomen.
From "All American Boys" by Jason Reynolds
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.
