''thistle'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''thistle'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250819014232-00-⌔

thistle - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

🖼️ ➺

Noun

thistle (plural thistles)

• Any of several perennial composite plants, especially of genera Cirsium, Carduus, Cynara, or Onopordum, having prickly leaves and showy flower heads with prickly bracts.
  • ✤ Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field […].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 upright²
• This plant seen as the national emblem of Scotland.
• (heraldry) An image of this plant used as a charge.
• The Order of the Thistle, or membership thereof.
  • ✤ Here’s a passage which will please you: ‘It is said that when rich he twice refused the thistle.’³

Etymology

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.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /θɪsl̩/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Rhymes: -ɪsəl

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

1. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 3:18: ↩

2. 2006, Joanna Newsom, “Sawdust and Diamonds”, in Ys ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

3. 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 324: ↩

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