Other forms: pricked, pricks, pricking
To prick is to make a tiny hole with something sharp. Prick the sausages, prick your finger, prick the skin.
It is what a needle, a thorn or a pin does, and the noun is both the small hole and the sharp sensation: a pinprick, a prick of pain. It also means to feel a small sting of emotion — a prick of conscience, my conscience pricked me. Prick up your ears means to start listening suddenly, from what a dog's ears do. Note that prick is also a coarse insult and a slang word for the penis, so the verb is safe and the bare noun is not.
1verbprickTo make a tiny hole with something sharp.
“Prick the pastry all over before it goes in.”
2verbcauseTo cause a small sharp feeling.
“Her conscience pricked her all the way home.”
3nounsensationA tiny hole or sharp sensation.
“There was a prick of pain and then nothing.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
prick is a small sharp piercing.
Old English prica meant a small point or dot, from a Germanic root about scratching. Prickle, prickly and the printing term for a dot all descend from it, and the sharp point is still the whole of the word's meaning.
Proto-Indo-European
*breyǵ- — to scrape, scratch, rub, prickle, chap
Proto-Germanic
*prikô
Proto-West Germanic
*prikō
Old English
prica
Middle English
prik
English, today
prick
Built from
From Middle English prik, prikke, from Old English prica, pricu (“a sharp point, minute mark, spot, dot, small portion, prick”), from Proto-West Germanic prikō, priku, from Proto-Germanic prikô, prikō (“a prick, point”), of uncertain origin, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European breyǵ- (“to scrape, scratch, rub, prickle, chap”). Cognate with West Frisian prik (“small hole”), West Frisian prikke (“penis”), Dutch prik (“point, small stick", also "penis”), Danish prik (“dot”), Icelandic prik (“dot, small stick”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA