adjective
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resembling a spike
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having a spike or spikes
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informal ill-tempered
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characterized by violent or aggressive methods
spiky protestors
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of spiky
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:
I need my bags, belts and shoes to be studded, spiky, pierced and heavy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2026
And what is that tall, spiky plant growing through his body?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
The projects would have helped conserve the imperiled spiky succulents that draw millions of visitors to Joshua Tree each year and play a key role as a linchpin of the Mojave Desert ecosystem.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026
"Rui was a perfectly normal pupil. He was nice, with his spiky hair, he was quite sociable but not extrovert," Falcao said.
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026
The spiky skin of a durian poked through the fabric.
From "A Wish in the Dark" by Christina Soontornvat
Sam Sacks writes that in this outing the author takes some of his characters out of the academic world and “replaces roseate campus fantasy with spikier societal conflicts.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026
I do know it has a "fun mode", for spikier responses - was it messing with me?
From BBC ● Jan. 19, 2024
But in its thumbnail sketches simmering with risk, humor, and melancholy, illuminating a world of worsening disparities but spikier solidarity, it entertainingly takes stock.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2023
Act 2, “Visitor From Hollywood,” is a spikier, shorter segue into satire.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 29, 2022
Desdemona’s hair was long and silky, but I’d gotten Jimmy Zizmo’s spikier variety.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
On set or onstage, she will throw herself into the scrappiest, spikiest, ugliest facets of any part, without ego or undue seriousness.
From New York Times ● Mar. 26, 2021
Shirley, director Josephine Decker’s new film about a few months in the life of the writer Shirley Jackson, aims to resemble a Shirley Jackson story of the very spikiest variety.
From Slate ● Jun. 2, 2020
But with “Jessica Jones,” which returns March 8 for a second season, she is able to let the spikiest elements of her imagination run amok.
From New York Times ● Mar. 2, 2018
Elegantly observed and hysterically funny, it is Rich's spikiest work to date, sidestepping his usual romantic softness in favour of addressing tensions between Brooklyn's hipster excesses and Herschel's desperate poverty.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 16, 2013
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
