1. To pierce with a sharp pointed instrument or substance; as, to prick one with a pin, a needle, a thorn or the like.

2. To erect a pointed thing, or with an acuminated point; applied chiefly to the ears, and primarily to the pointed ears of an animal. The horse pricks his ears, or pricks up his ears.

3. To fix by the point; as, to prick a knife into a board.

4. To hang on a point.

The cooks prick a slice on a prong of iron.

5. To designate by a puncture or mark.

Some who are pricked for sheriffs, and are fit, set out of the bill.

6. To spur; to goad; to incite; sometimes with on or off.

My duty pricks me on to utter that

Which no worldly good should draw from me.

But how if honor prick me off.

7. To affect with sharp pain; to sting with remorse.

When they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts. Acts 2. Psa 73.

8. To make acid or pungent to the taste; as, wine is pricked.

9. To write a musical composition with the proper notes on a scale.

10. In seamen's language, to run a middle seam through the cloth of a sail.

To prick a chart, is to trace a ship's course on a chart.

, n.

1. A slender pointed instrument or substance, which is hard enough to pierce the skin; a goad; a spur.

It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Acts 9.

2. Sharp stinging pain; remorse.

3. A spot or mark at which archers aim.

4. A point; a fixed place.

5. A puncture or place entered by a point.

6. The print of a hare on the ground.

7. In seamen's language, a small roll; as a prick of spun yarn; a prick of tobacco.