A hedge of thorny shrubs; spec. a hedge composed of hawthorn ‘sets.’ Hence Thorn-hedged a., furnished with or enclosed by a thorn-hedge.
1560. Bible (Genev.), Micah vii. 4. The most righteous of them is sharper then a thorne hedge.
a. 1732. T. Boston, Crook in Lot (1805), 33. It is like a thorn-hedge … in the way which that bias inclines him to.
1854. Zoologist, XII. 4286. I discovered in a thorn-hedge the first nest that I had seen that year.
1892. A. M. Clerke, Fam. Stud. Homer, iii. 73. Odysseus … approached the thorn-hedged enclosure.
