[f. BRIER + -Y1.]
1. Full of or consisting of thorns or briers; brambly, thorny.
1549. Coverdale, Erasm. Par. James, 28. It taketh no rote in a briery place.
1581. Studley, Seneca’s Hippolytus, 64. Up and downe the breary Brakes.
1623. Sir J. Beaumont, Transfigur., in Farr’s S. P. (1848), 144. By steepe and briery paths ye must ascend.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), I. 223. Over briery enclosures.
1846. Keble, Lyra Innoc. (1873), 154. Dews … glist’ning clear, Thro’ their brown or briery screen.
1876. Blackmore, Cripps, ii. 11. A briary thicket.
† 2. Of or pertaining to briers. Obs. rare.
1593. Nashe, Christ’s T. (1613), 31. Her possessors neuer escape briery scratches.
3. fig. Of the nature of briers; vexing.
1604. T. Wright, Passions, I. iii. 11. Those spinie braunches of briarie passions.
1648. Earl Westmoreland, Otia Sacra (1879), 41. Choak’d with the Brierie Cares of this world.
1876. Bancroft, Hist. U. S., II. xxiii. 84. To go forth into the briery and brambly world.
