Spinous

a. [f. SPINE sb.¹ + -OUS, or ad. L. spīnōs-us SPINOSE a.]

  1.  fig. Resembling or suggestive of a thorn or thorns in respect of sharpness and aridity; unpleasant and difficult or unprofitable to handle or deal with. (Cf. SPINOSE a. 1.)

a. 1638.  Mede, Disc. Script. (1642), 92. This I take to be the true and genuine meaning of this passage,… nor needeth it any spinous Criticisms for its explication.

1660.  trans. Amyraldus’ Treat. conc. Relig., III. xi. 535. They would not judge Religion a thing full of spinous questions and irresolvable difficulties.

1694.  Strype, Mem. Cranmer, II. xiii. 196. Who had himself … vindicated the truth from the spinous and confused cavils of Sophisters.

1821.  Lamb, Elia, I. Old Benchers Inner T. Many a sarcastic growl did the latter cast out—for Coventry had a rough spinous humour.

  2.  Bot. Furnished with spines or thorns; thorn-bearing, thorny.

1668.  Wilkins, Real Char., 109. Larger leaves; not spinous.

1694.  Westmacott, Script. Herb., 199. The Spinous tribe of herbs are many.

1776.  J. Lee, Introd. Bot., Explan. Terms 380. Spinosus, spinous, armed with Thorns.

1815.  Kirby & Sp., Entomol. (1818), I. 288. Insects, which it first impales alive on the thorns of the sloe and other spinous plants.

1854.  Hooker, Himal. Jrnls., I. vi. 157. With spinous involucres inclosing an eatable sweet nut.

1887.  J. Ball, Nat. S. Amer., 32. One of the spinous species of Solanum.

  3.  Armed or covered with spines or slender sharp-pointed excrescences; spinigerous. Chiefly Zool.

1774.  Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1824), III. I. i. 13. Thus there are three grand divisions in the fish kind; the cetaceous, the cartilaginous, and the spinous.

1822.  J. Parkinson, Outl. Oryctol., 147. The corselet … is sometimes spinous,… but it is generally smooth.

1834.  McMurtrie, Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd., 192. Fishes … whose operculum or preoperculum … [has] dentated or spinous edges.

1897.  Allbutt’s Syst. Med., IV. 27. Their surface [is] smooth, rough, or spinous.

  b.  In specific names, as spinous loach, shark, spider-crab, tortoise.

1769.  Pennant, Brit. Zool., III. 1. The Spinous Tortoise … seems common to the Mediterranean.

1839.  Yarrell, Brit. Fishes, Suppl. II. 54. The Spinous Shark. Echinorhinus spinosus.

1862.  Couch, Brit. Fishes, I. 54. The Spinous Shark was not known to naturalists before the latter part of the last … century.

1881.  Cassell’s Nat. Hist., V. 133. The Spinous Loach (Cobitis tænia) is a rarer fish in this country. Ibid. (1882), VI. 198. The Spinous Spider Crab (Maja squinado).

  4.  Having the form of a spine or thorn; slender and sharp-pointed.

1758.  Monro, Anat. Bones (ed. 6), 121. The fifteenth is the spinous [suture]; which is in the middle of the lower part of the nostrils.

1807.  J. E. Smith, Phys. Bot., 414. Four naked seeds, with always more or less of spinous bristles … on their foliage.

1828.  Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., I. 409. Tail forked, with a spinous ray on each side.

1854.  Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, III. 164. The scales on the back were … raised to a sharp edge, but not spinous nor curved backwards.

  b.  Spinous process, a process or apophysis of a spine-like form, esp. one of those on the vertebræ.

1732.  Monro, Anat. (ed. 2), 201. The spinous Processes of the Vertebræ of the Back become gradually longer.

1797.  Abernethy, Surg. Ess., III. 28. I could … touch the transverse spinous process of the sphenoid bone.

1831.  R. Knox, Cloquet’s Anat., 115. The Anterior and Inferior spinous process of the ilium.

1843.  R. J. Graves, Syst. Clin. Med., xxx. 416. There was no tenderness over the spinous processes of the vertebræ.

1873.  Mivart, Elem. Anat., 178–9. Separated by a small notch from a strongly marked prominence called the posterior inferior spinous process.

  5.  Composed of spines.

1790.  Bewick, Hist. Quadrup., 423. The Hedge-Hog, or Urchin, Destitute of every other means of defence, is provided by Nature with a spinous armour.

  6.  Anat. Of or belonging to the spine.

1826.  S. Cooper, First Lines Surg., 216. A rupture of the spinous, or some other artery of the dura mater.

  7.  Comb., as spinous-finned, -pointed, -serrate, -tailed, -tipped, -toothed.

1785.  Latham, Gen. Synop. Birds, III. II. 555. Spinous-tailed Teal … inhabits Cayenne and Guiana.

1828.  J. E. Smith, Eng. Flora, II. 18. Leaves awl-shaped, spinous-pointed, rough.

1851.  Gosse, Nat. Hist., Fishes, 200. The Soft-finned Fishes are, in general, inferior to the Spinous-finned in [etc.].

1870.  Hooker, Stud. Flora, 185. Leaves alternate, usually spinous-toothed. Ibid., 191. Bracts … acuminate or spinous-tipped.

  Hence Spinousness.

1846.  Patterson, Zool., 48. It varies also in the length of the ray-spines, the spinousness of the disc and the relative proportions of rays and discs.