| a. | 1. | Thick set with bristles, or with hairs resembling bristles; rough. |
| Adj. | 1. | bristly - very irritable; "bristly exchanges between the White House and the press"; "he became prickly and spiteful"; "witty and waspish about his colleagues" |
| 2. | bristly - having or covered with protective barbs or quills or spines or thorns or setae etc.; "a horse with a short bristly mane"; "bristly shrubs"; "burred fruits"; "setaceous whiskers" |