Fig.: Resembling a thistle or thistles; sharp; pricking. "In such a world, so thorny, and where none Finds happiness unblighted, or, if found, Without some thistly sorrow at its side."
... slowly and by the step, and with no jump at all, she seemed to wish to see the boxes carried in, and even to pay the driver, instead of joining in that first glorious rush round the garden and orchard and the thorny, thistly, briery, brambly wilderness beyond the broken gate and the dry fountain at the side of the house. But the children were wiser, for once. It was not really a pretty house at all; it was quite ordinary, and mother thought it was rather inconvenient, ... — Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
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