prickish

English

Etymology

prick +‎ -ish

Adjective

prickish (comparative more prickish, superlative most prickish)

1. (informal, vulgar) having the characteristics of a prick; being unpleasant, rude or annoying.
   • 2005, Todd Dufresne, Killing Freud, A&C Black, page 162:

     The lost cause of psychoanalysis, so infused with a non-intellectual bias, dominated by partisan interests, and characterized by a stunning degree of ill-will and prickish behaviour, has finally made way for a new cause – actually an old one – that of rigorous, informed scholarship.