thistle

From Middle English thistel, from Old English þistel, from Proto-West Germanic *þistil, from Proto-Germanic *þistilaz. *þīh- from *teyg-, which is a variant of Proto-Indo-European *(s)teyg- (“to prick”); from this same Proto-Indo-European root comes English stick.

Cognates include Scots thrissel, German Distel, Dutch distel, and Old Norse and Icelandic þistill.

• IPA^(key): /θɪsl̩/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ɪsəl

thistle (plural thistles)

2. Any of several perennial composite plants, especially of genera Cirsium, Carduus, Cynara, or Onopordum, having prickly leaves and showy flower heads with prickly bracts.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 3:18:

     Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field [...].

   • 2006, Joanna Newsom, “Sawdust and Diamonds”, in Ys‎^[1]:

     I wasn’t born of a whistle, or milked from a thistle at twilight / No; I was all horns and thorns, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright

3. This plant seen as the national emblem of Scotland.
4. (heraldry) An image of this plant used as a charge.
5. The Order of the Thistle, or membership thereof.
   • 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 324:

     Here's a passage which will please you: ‘It is said that when rich he twice refused the thistle.’

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “thistle”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “thistle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Hittles, Lettish, listeth, lithest, shittle