thornbush

American  

[thawrn-boosh] / ˈθɔrnˌbʊʃ /

noun

1. any of various shrubs or bushes having spines or thorns.

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Etymology

Origin of thornbush

1300–50; Middle English. See thorn, bush ¹

Example Sentences

“I uncovered things about myself along the way. It’s like reading a book for the second time. I had to drag myself back through that thornbush. But I understood myself all the better because of it.”

From The Guardian

Conceived as the dual portrait of a mentor — Mandy Patinkin’s Saul Berenson — shepherding his protégé — Claire Danes’ Carrie Mathison — through the thornbush of the Central Intelligence Agency, the series has since been a cat-and-mouse game, a fraught romance, a stripped-down spy thriller and a domestic political drama; a critics’ darling, a disappointment, a comeback kid.

From Los Angeles Times

You may accuse me of being as dry and brittle as a Thornbush Porter, but I just find the prospect of a grown adult revelling in the wit of a drink called Shut Thi Gob, Bushy Beaver or Battleaxe a little tiresome and a tiny bit sad.

From The Guardian

The spiky thornbush, nature’s barbed wire, provides protection until the sapling has stretched higher than the browse line.

From Washington Post

So each big messy thornbush is a live nursery for a baby oak, and this field of low scrub will be dotted with massive trees in a half-century.

From Washington Post