hedgehoggy

comparative more hedgehoggy · superlative most hedgehoggy

1. informalOf the nature of a hedgehog: externally repellent; difficult to get on with.

   Get near some of those dear hedgehoggy brethren, and go and make a pillow of them.

   1882, Spurgeon, Chr. World Pulpit, volume XXII, page 163

   2 more examples

   ‘Why is it that we English, when we meet abroad, are so very friendly, and when we reappear in London are so very hedgyhoggy?’ I told her that the reason why there was no hedgehogginess on this occasion was because I was not an Englishman.

   1858, Motley, Corr., volume I, published 1889, page 266

   So your hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and over their Bibles, and declare that whatever sticks to their own spines is Scripture.

   1866, Ruskin, Eth. Dust, published 1883, page 101

2. human sciencesWith a worldview based on a single overarching idea.

   For half a century, psychotherapy was dominated by hedgehoggy men who considered their style "normal," and women's foxy, emotional, flexible style "hysterical."

   2000, Charles H. Kramer, Therapeutic Mastery: Becoming a More Creative and Effective Psychotherapist, Zeig Tucker & Theisen Publishers, →ISBN, page 76

   1 more example

   The wary reader will at this point justifiably ask whether an endorsement of Hardin's model may commit us to the hedgehoggy, unidimensional thinking of apocalyptic ecologists and their IPAT equation, a position we found too rigid

   2010 November 15, Bryan G. Norton, Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 233

   Antonyms: foxy