Prick vs Spike - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between prick and spike

is that prick is a small hole or perforation, caused by piercing while spike is an ear of corn or grain.

As verbs the difference between prick and spike

is that prick is to pierce or puncture slightly while spike is to fix on a spike; to pierce or run through with a spike.

As a proper noun Spike is

A male nickname.

prick
English

Etymology 1
From (etyl) prik, prikke, from (etyl) prica, . Pejorative context came from prickers, or witch-hunters.
Noun
(en noun)
A small hole or perforation, caused by piercing.

An indentation or small mark made with a pointed object.

(obsolete) A dot or other diacritical mark used in writing; a point.

(obsolete) A tiny particle; a small amount of something; a jot.

A small pointed object.

* Shakespeare

Pins, wooden pricks , nails, sprigs of rosemary.

* Bible, Acts ix. 5

It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks .

The experience or feeling of being pierced or punctured by a small, sharp object.

I felt a sharp prick as the nurse took a sample of blood.

* A. Tucker

the pricks of conscience

(slang, vulgar) The penis.

(slang, pejorative) Someone (especially a man or boy) who is unpleasant, rude or annoying.

(now, historical) A small roll of yarn or tobacco.

The footprint of a hare.

(obsolete) A point or mark on the dial, noting the hour.

* Shakespeare

the prick of noon

(obsolete) The point on a target at which an archer aims; the mark; the pin.

* Spenser

they that shooten nearest the prick

Derived terms
* pricker * prickle * prickly * pricktease * prickteaser
Etymology 2
From (etyl) .

Verb
(en verb)
To pierce or puncture slightly.

John hardly felt the needle prick his arm when the adept nurse drew blood.

To form by piercing or puncturing.

to prick holes in paper

to prick a pattern for embroidery

to prick the notes of a musical composition

(Cowper)

(dated) To be punctured; to suffer or feel a sharp pain, as by puncture.

A sore finger pricks .

To incite, stimulate, goad.

* (rfdate), (Shakespeare), (Two Gentlemen of Verona) , ii. 7.

My duty pricks me on to utter that.

To affect with sharp pain; to sting, as with remorse.

* Bible, Acts ii. 37

Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart.

* Tennyson

I was pricked with some reproof.

(archaic) To urge one's horse on; to ride quickly.

(Milton)

* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , III.1:

At last, as through an open plaine they yode, / They spide a knight that towards them pricked fayre [...].

* 1881 , :

Indeed, it is a memorable subject for consideration, with what unconcern and gaiety mankind pricks on along the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

(transitive, chiefly, nautical) To mark the surface of (something) with pricks or dots; especially, to trace a ship’s course on (a chart).

(nautical, obsolete) To run a middle seam through the cloth of a sail. (The Universal Dictionary of the English Language, 1896)

To make acidic or pungent.

(Hudibras)

To become sharp or acid; to turn sour, as wine.

To aim at a point or mark.

(Hawkins)

To fix by the point; to attach or hang by puncturing.

to prick a knife into a board

* Sandys

The cooks prick it [a slice] on a prong of iron.

(Isaac Newton)

(obsolete) To mark or denote by a puncture; to designate by pricking; to choose; to mark.

* Francis Bacon

Some who are pricked for sheriffs.

* Sir Walter Scott

Let the soldiers for duty be carefully pricked off.

* Shakespeare

Those many, then, shall die: their names are pricked .

To make sharp; to erect into a point; to raise, as something pointed; said especially of the ears of an animal, such as a horse or dog; and usually followed by up .

* Dryden

The courser pricks up his ears.

(obsolete) To dress; to prink; usually with up .

(farriery) To drive a nail into (a horse's foot), so as to cause lameness.

(Webster 1913)

spike

English

Noun

(en noun)

An ear of corn or grain.

# (botany) A kind of inflorescence in which sessile flowers are arranged on an unbranched elongated axis.

oil of spike

Something pointed or sharp.

# A sort of very large nail; anything resembling such a nail in shape.

#* Addison

He wears on his head the corona radiata ; the spikes that shoot out represent the rays of the sun.

# The long, narrow part of a woman's high-heeled shoe that elevates the heel.

# A sharp peak in a graph.

# a surge in power.

# (informal) In spikes : running shoes with spikes in the soles.

# (volleyball) An attack from, usually, above the height of the net performed with the intent to send the ball straight to the floor of the opponent or off the hands of the opposing block.

(zoology) An adolescent male deer.

(slang) The casual ward of a workhouse.

* 1933 : , p. 139.

"Dere's tay spikes', and cocoa '''spikes''', and skilly ' spikes ."

Synonyms

* catkin, raceme, cluster, corymb, umbel

Derived terms

Verb

(spik)

To fix on a spike; to pierce or run through with a spike.

# To fasten with spikes, or long, large nails.

to spike down planks

# To set or furnish with spikes.

(Young)

# (military) To render (a gun) unusable by driving a metal spike into its touch hole.

#* 1834 , (Frederick Marryat), Peter Simple :

He jumped down, wrenched the hammer from the armourer’s hand, and seizing a nail from the bag, in a few moments he had spiked the gun.

#* 1990 , (Peter Hopkirk), The Great Game , Folio Society 2010, p. 235-6:

Small skirmishes also took place, and the Afghans managed to seize a pair of mule-guns and force the British to spike and abandon two other precious guns.

# (journalism) To decide not to publish or make public. (From the former practice of newspaper editors impaling sheets of typewritten articles not selected for publication on a metal spike or spindle placed on their desks: see 2010 quotation.)

#* '>citation

# (American football) To slam a football to the ground, usually in celebration of scoring a touchdown, or to stop expiring time on the game clock after snapping the ball as to save time for the losing team to attempt to score the tying or winning points.

# (volleyball) To attack from, usually, above the height of the net with the intent to send the ball straight to the floor of the opponent or off the hands of the opposing block.

To increase sharply.

Traffic accidents spiked in December when there was ice on the roads.

To add a small amount of one substance to another.

The water sample to be tested has been spiked with arsenic, antimony, mercury, and lead in quantities commonly found in industrial effluents.

* '>citation

# (specifically) To covertly put alcohol or another intoxicating substance into food or drink.

She spiked my lemonade with vodka!

Derived terms

* spike someone's guns

Synonyms

* (volleyball): attack, hit

Anagrams

* * * English terms with multiple etymologies