bristler

plural bristlers

1. Someone or something that bristles.

   And Claudia wasn't a bristler by nature; she was as bubbly as they came.

   2014, Ally Blake, Her Hottest Summer Yet, →ISBN

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   but study this useful little insect, and we find that by care and attention we may not only manage to approach the little bristler, without fear of its weapon, but extract so many sweets, that when we know its service, we wonder how any one on earth can be so silly as to quarrel with it!

   1866, Charles Bullock, Our Own Fireside, page 25

   Is it the braggart and the bristler, the man who has nothing to learn, who would build a wall between America and other lands, or would array America against the world;

   1896, The New England Magazine - Volume 20, page 127

   We are the "bristlers," the easily hurt and hostile, the solitary ones, the "people are bums" man, the "don't let anyone know" woman.

   1977, Elizabeth Boyden Howes, Sheila Moon, The Choicemaker, →ISBN, page 68

   The old school baseball people bristled (Showalter was probably the chief bristler), but the fans fell in love with his big swings and big personality.

   2012, Josh Lewin, Ballgame!, →ISBN

2. informalA bristled pig.

   A beast, like Calydon's of yore, Boasts headbands never bristler wore.

   1907, Martial, Epigrams, page 77

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   'Twas he who rear'd the roe-deer's brood, And the young bristler of the wood ;

   1840, James Hogg, The Poetical Works of the Ettrick Shepherd

   Music on the hog-octave. The other bristlers whipped into the back-ground.

   1851, Carpet-bag: A Literary Journal - Volume 1, page 115

   Duttoo arrived as soon almost as we did at the tents, with more good news, and we were remounted and among the bristlers again in no time.

   1873, The Oriental Sporting Magazine: From June 1828 to June 1833

   Also David W. Magie, tamed as the originator of the Magie or Poland China hog, produced from four distinct breeds of bristlers about the year 1840.

   1908, Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio

   This being so, we may note that foreigners who disliked our long-haired kings no only insulted them by calling them the 'bristled ones' butals said their bristles were a thing they had in common with lions, horses and swine (which for this reason are all called Setosi and Setigeri, bristlers), and they even extended the insult by saying they had pig's bristles.

   2010, François Hotman, Ralph E. Giesey, J. H. M. Salmon, Francogallia, →ISBN, page 281

3. obsoleteA conman.

   A bristle was a loaded or crooked dice. lt was specially weighted which meant that it fell on whichever number the bristler chose.

   2004, Aaron Wilkes, Renaissance, Revolution and Reformation: Britain 1485-1750, →ISBN

   1 more example

   A friend of mine having occasion to show this section to a party of 4 bristlers, states that they withdrew a pace and seemed to be computing among themselves.

   1902, George O. Shields, Recreation - Volume 16, page 212

4. derogatoryobsoleteA person of low social class.

   But I own I like a quiet unobtrusive bristler — the sort of man who doesn't want to take you beyond ten times ten in the multiplication table.

   1915, Eliakim Littell, Robert S. Littell, The Living Age - Volume 287, page 681

5. obsoleteslangA soldier who is part of a company that carries pikes.

   Many attacks and retreats did Bruin make boldly, notwithstanding the roar and warlike phalanx attitude of the bristlers.

   1859, Phineas Camp, W. N. Duane, Poems of the Mohawk Valley, and on Scenes in Palestine, page 117

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   Amont the thirty thousand men led to war by Charles VIII., six thousand Swiss soldiers were especially remarked, formed in large square battalions, of one thousand men each, which were called "bristlers," in allusion to the pikes which they presented on all sides.

   1843, George Moir Bussey, Thomas Gaspey, The pictorial history of France and of the French people, page 71