Verb

(bristl)

To rise or stand erect, like bristles.

* Sir Walter Scott

His hair did bristle upon his head.

To appear as if covered with bristles; to have standing, thick and erect, like bristles.

* Thackeray

the hill of La Haye Sainte bristling with ten thousand bayonets

* Macaulay

ports bristling with thousands of masts

To be on one's guard or raise one's defenses; to react with fear, suspicion, or distance.

* Shakespeare

Now for the bare-picked bone of majesty / Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}

To fix a bristle to.

to bristle a thread