pricking

SayPRIK-ing/ˈpɹɪkɪŋ/

6 meanings of pricking

1
verb
Present participle and gerund of prick.
Guilt kept pricking him long after the argument was over.
Pricking out the seedlings is slow, careful work, but it gives each plant room to grow.
Note
The -ing form follows be or keep as a participle (guilt kept pricking him) and works as a gerund for the action itself (pricking out seedlings is slow work). Once it takes the or a, or the plural prickings, it has become a noun, and the line between it and the act of piercing is mostly grammar: pricking the finger, but a pricking of the finger.
2
nouncountable or uncountable
The action of jabbing a sharp point into something, making a small hole.
A single pricking of the fingertip gives enough blood for the test.
The hikers came out of the gorse with their legs raw from the prickings of countless thorns.
Similarpiercing, puncture, jab
3
nounfigurativelycountable or uncountable
A feeling that stings like a sharp point, or that causes sharp emotional pain.
A faint pricking of jealousy crept in as he watched his rival take the stage.
Every reminder of the old quarrel brought fresh prickings of regret.
Similartwinge, pang, sting, stab
Note
The figurative pricking usually comes with of and names the feeling it brings: the prickings of conscience, a pricking of jealousy, prickings of regret. It borrows its picture from the act of piercing, a small sharp point that is slight but hard to ignore. It counts freely, so a single faint pricking and repeated prickings are both natural.
4
nouncountable or uncountable
The driving of a nail into a horse's foot in a way that lames the animal.
The mare went lame the day after she was shod, and the vet traced the trouble to a pricking in her left forefoot.
Pricking is a risk whenever a horse is shod, so a good farrier drives every nail with care.
5
noununcountable
The act of tracking a hare by following its footprints.
Fresh snow made for good pricking, and the hunters followed the hare's trail to the hedge.
He was skilled at pricking, reading the faint marks a hare left in soft earth.

Less common meaning

6
nounobsoleteuncountable
The act of dressing oneself up for show, so as to look fine in front of others.
Note
Long out of use, it sits beside prinking as a word for fussing over one's looks before being seen. Meet it in older writing and read it from the setting, because a modern reader would take pricking to mean piercing with a point. For new writing, dressing up or primping says the same thing without the confusion.

pricking is a form of prick

prick, verb: To pierce something slightly with a sharp point, or to make small holes or a pattern in it in this way. Full entry

Forms: prickpricks he/she/itpricking -ing formpricked past tense, past participle
Spelling: prick → pricking: add -ing

Practice

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