ppl. a. [f. BRISTLE + -ED.]
1. Covered, set or tipped with bristles or stiff prickly hairs; rough and prickly, bristly.
a. 1300. K. Alis., 5722. His rigge was bristled as with sharp sithen.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., 148. Þe bristled[e] boor.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., xxix. ii. His bryes brystled truely lyke a sowes.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, IV. xlvi. 505. The eares are … more bristeled or bearded.
1607. Shaks., Cor., II. ii. 96. With his Amazonian [C]hinne he droue The brizled Lippes before him.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 397. The bristled Boar … New grinds his arming Tusks.
1730. Southall, Buggs, 19. Has six Legs … jointed and bristled as the Legs of a Crab.
2. Of hair or feathers: a. Stiff like bristles. b. Erect, raised, ‘on end.’
1553. Eden, Treat. New Ind. (Arb.), 16. In the sted of a tayle, a mane, or rough and bristeled heare.
1631. [Mabbe], Celestina, I. 22. By thy brizzled beard.
1832. A. Wilson, Amer. Ornith., I. 169. The hen hurries about with hanging wings and bristled feathers.
1836–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., II. 84/2. With bristled mane and haggard eye.
3. Set as with bristles; bristling.
1676. Hobbes, Iliad, III. 183. The brissled Ranks Of th’ armed Greeks.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 309. The … central range … bristled with pointed rocks.
1833. I. Taylor, Fanat., vi. 159. Through bristled ramparts and triple lines of shields.
4. Furnished with a bristle.
1794. Gold. Age, in Poet. Reg. (1807), 407. Arm’d with a bristled end and glittering awl.
