the.com/prick
A single pinprick can hold pain or relief, depending on who's holding the needle.
means To pierce something lightly with a sharp point, or the small sharp sensation (or sharp object) that does the piercing — and, in slang, an unpleasant or contemptible person.
from From Old English 'prica,' a point, dot, or puncture, with the verb 'prician' meaning to pierce. The Germanic family is full of these little stabbing words. The 'sharp point' sense came first; the 'pointed insult' for a despicable man arrived much later, an obvious enough leap from the anatomical slang that had grown up alongside it.
- Origin
- Once meant a literal pointed object or thorn
- Botanical defense
- Plant prickles deter hungry herbivores from leaves
- Goad roots
- Kicking against the pricks meant fighting an ox-prod
- Insult age
- Used as a slur for centuries, deeply old-school
- Fingertip prick
- One drop tests blood sugar millions of times daily
chris p bacon — real person with this unfortunate name who has dealt with the irony publicly
mike hunt — real person whose name has been used in prank calls for decades
seymour butz — real person with this surname existing in multiple documented instances