(botany) Any shrub or small tree that bears thorns.
A letter of the Latin alphabet (capital: Þ, small: þ), borrowed by Old English from the futhark to represent a dental fricative, then not distinguished from eth, but in modern use (in Icelandic and other languages, but no longer in English) used only for the voiceless dentalfricative found in English thigh
“Numerous studies have shown, however, that prickliness, spinesence or thorniness decreases with increasing height in the crown.”
“Brash dissonances dissolve into invitingly harmonized passages, which then climb back toward thorniness.”
“Avid moviegoers should be singing the director's praises from the rooftops for daring to thrash out the matter in all its imperfect, dark thorniness.”