Also 8 -ey. [f. SPIKE sb.2]
1. Fitted with a spike or spikes; having sharp projecting points.
1720. Pope, Iliad, XX. 585. The spiky Wheels thro’ Heaps of Carnage tore; And thick the groaning Axles dropp’d with Gore.
1764. Randall, Semi-Virgilian Husb., App. 1. Mr. Ellis, in one of his eight volumes on Husbandry, made mention of a Spiky Roller.
1767. Jago, Edge-hill, III. 120. By gainful Commerce of her woolly Vests, Wrought by the spiky Comb.
1866. Daily Tel., 20 Jan., 3/6. His martial cloak … around him, and the usual spiky helmet on his head.
1893. G. Allen, Scallywag, I. 97. A couple of large spiky shells.
Comb. 1778. [W. Marshall], Minutes Agric., Observ., 18. The latter has scarcely ten vigorous plants in the whole field;—though spikey-rolled, and repeatedly harrowed.
2. Having the form of a spike or spikes; stiff and sharp-pointed.
1742. R. Blair, Grave, 191. The tapering Pyramid!… Whose spiky Top Has wounded the thick Cloud.
1796. Kirwan, Elem. Min. (ed. 2), I. 298. [Calcedony] filiform, tubular, or spiky.
1810. Wordsw., Prose Wks. (1876), II. 282. If ten thousand of this spiky tree, the larch, are stuck in at once upon the side of a hill, they can grow up into nothing but deformity.
1859. Dickens, T. Two Cities, II. i. With his spiky hair looking as if it must tear the sheet to ribbons.
1894. W. Besant, Equal Woman, 126. A dozen spiky thorns sticking into him in the most cruel manner.
Comb. 1849. Cupples, Green Hand, xvi. (1856), 158. The high bundles of knotted and jointed bamboo, with their spiky-tufted crowns.
3. fig. Suggestive of spikes; sharp.
1881. Mrs. Lynn Linton, My Love! I. 94. To oppose smoothness to her spiky irritability.
