| 释义 |
noun θɔːnθɔrn 1A stiff, sharp-pointed woody projection on the stem or other part of a plant. Example sentencesExamples - Having bare feet also made it easier to grip when following a ridge and, since there was not the faintest trace of vegetation anywhere, there was no danger from thorns.
- Sweating on an assembly line, she strips thorns from flowers bound for countries where people can afford such luxuries.
- I just keep staring at the rose, the petals, the long yellow stamens, stem, the fat red thorns, wanting to say so much.
- Experts have known for some time that cheetahs are particularly prone to eye injuries from thorns and spikes.
- Due to the proposed similarity in function among thorns, spines, and prickles, we will hereafter generically refer to all plants bearing them as armed.
- The thorns on the rose stem pressed into his skin but he ignored the pain.
- The untrained eye cannot always distinguish between a blackberry and a raspberry, since the shapes and sizes of the fruit, leaves, and thorns vary, and there are both red blackberries and black raspberries.
- Here in south Texas, where the mesquite brush and most other native plants have thorns and where not a few critters have a mean bite, it helps to be tough.
- The rural imagery is varied: the rising sap, meadows, individual plants, birds, a bedewed rose among its thorns, storm, flood, and fair weather.
- Roses ramble over walls, branches stiff with thorns and laden with huge blossoms.
- But I'm so inherently Texan I love it all - the stickers, the spikes, the thorns, the burrs, the nettles, and the rocks.
- The Romans considered holly to be lucky, and it was later accepted as a symbol by the church - its sharp leaves likened to the thorns worn by Jesus and its berries to the drops of Christ's blood.
- Workers spray rose bushes, harvest stems, strip them of thorns and pluck the blemished petals.
- Her finger caught on one of the thorns hidden beneath a leaf.
- Plants also possess a great diversity of physical resistance traits, such as spines and thorns.
- Nearly all of the plant life protects itself with thorns, barbs and needles.
- The door was engraved with carvings of dead and live roses with long stems and sharp thorns.
- I could easily compare her to a rose: a beautiful flower with piercing thorns.
- Certain plants have developed thorns to prevent themselves from being devoured and they work equally well as deterrents for humans too.
- It is very difficult to miss this flower with its very vibrant orange leaves and dangerous thorns.
Synonyms prickle, spike, barb, spine, bristle technical spicule - 1.1 A source of discomfort, annoyance, or difficulty; an irritation or obstacle.
the issue has become a thorn in renewing the peace talks Example sentencesExamples - His visits to the shrine have been a thorn that is increasingly irritating relations between the two countries.
- A friend and I were sitting around commiserating about the things that get to us: unloading small indignities, comparing thorns.
- Why do our love lives have to be a winding road full of obstacles and thorns?
- However, that thorn has yet to trouble the organisers, who are revitalising and expanding the event.
- Jake is a big thorn in this school.
2A thorny bush, shrub, or tree, especially a hawthorn. Example sentencesExamples - ‘They threw me over the back of a camel and told me they would kill me if I cried,’ he said, sitting quietly under a thorn tree on the outskirts of Turalei.
- Huge clusters of thorn bushes, fungus, tree roots and a carpet of dead leaves and pine needles made walking a chore.
- With the sun at its highest and the birds falling silent, I had a short siesta under a thorn tree.
- Point out any potential hazards to the child, such as thorn bushes or poison ivy.
- The lions chased him, and savaged his leg before he fell into a thorn bush too dense for them to reach him.
- Pretty soon I sat up with a jerk as something was thrashing like mad in the thorn bush above my head.
- In the autumn we intend to plant fruiting species of trees, including gelda rose, hawthorn, hazel, thorn and snowberry.
- I wish to draw everybody's attention to the great value of all established indigenous trees and of camel thorn trees in particular.
- To this day, a large and twisted thorn tree - the ‘Friar's Thorn’ - grows on the mound where the ceremonies were carried out and it is near here that the ‘Friar's Stone’ is located.
- Instead of a well-equipped school their children are taught beneath the shade of a thorn tree.
- Along the banks grew knob thorns, sausage trees, vegetable ivory, ilala palms, mangoes, wild figs, tamarinds and mahogany, as well as the ubiquitous acacia.
- I sit beside my flowering thorn and drink a little wine.
- The undergrowth of thorns and shrubs was bad enough, but in addition the whole place was chock-full of a sort of reed with long leaves about an inch or so broad.
- Slowly we progress across the crimson lakes of sand, silver pools of sand, enormous hillocks of sand, skirting giant rocks and stubbornly vibrant patches of thorn bush.
- When he reached Glastonbury he planted his staff, which then took root and grew into a thorn tree.
- The camels seem to enjoy bunches of dry-looking thorn bush.
- She could see a forest surrounding the town, dense and thick, full of dark, tangled trees and thorns that looked scary and uninviting.
3An Old English and Icelandic runic letter, þ or Þ, representing the dental fricatives /ð/ and /θ/. It was eventually superseded by the digraph th. Compare with eth Example sentencesExamples - Similarly, thorn may represent either a voiceless or a voiced sound: compare the current use of the digraph th in three and these.
4A yellowish-brown woodland moth which rests with the wings raised over the back, with caterpillars that mimic twigs in appearance. Ennomos and other genera, family Geometridae
Phrases there is no rose without a thorn proverb Every apparently desirable situation has its share of trouble or difficulty. Example sentencesExamples - There is no rose without a thorn, but people getting all hot and bothered is not going to do Sligo any good.
- Among other things, Stenwick prides itself upon the comeliness of its damsels, but, just as there is no rose without a thorn, so there is no parish whose gallery of feminine pulchritude is utterly flawless.
- But there is no rose without a thorn and they stand for life's difficulties and tragedies.
a thorn in someone's side (or flesh) A source of continual annoyance or trouble. the pastor has long been a thorn in the side of the regime Example sentencesExamples - We will continue to be a thorn in his side, keeping a close eye on him and interfering with his criminal activities.
- I was a thorn in their side because I wouldn't go along with what they wanted to do.
- Neighbours consider him a kind person who is ready to help others, while criminals see him as a thorn in their side.
- A committed republican, he continued to be a thorn in Cromwell 's side, being elected to the protector's parliaments of 1654 and 1656, but prevented from taking his seat.
- A feisty nuisance of a forward, he was a thorn in their side throughout.
- Has there been a government in the last thirty years which hasn't regarded the our journalists as a thorn in its side?
- His uncompromising attitude continually made him a thorn in the Establishment 's side.
- He's still there of course, and will no doubt continue to be a thorn in our side, but the main danger now seems to be past.
- I'm going to be a thorn in their side until they deliver the school places, until they deliver the public transport, until they deliver the parks and the playgrounds.
- We will continue to fight, to be there as a thorn in their side.
Synonyms annoyance, irritant, irritation, source of irritation, source of vexation, source of annoyance, pinprick, pest, bother, trial, torment, plague, inconvenience, nuisance, menace
Derivatives adjective Huddled behind thorned bushes and high grass, the families watched as their huts - including one for grain storage - were burned. Example sentencesExamples - We drove past brown, sandy hills crowned by patches of cacti with round, thorned leaves.
- The violets, the marigold, the cannas; they were all gone in favor of the thorned monstrosities.
- There are more than 1,500 kinds of plants in these forests, including 19 kinds of rare plants such as the thorned cyathea spinulosa, the Chinese double-fan fern, the Chinese goose-palm catalpa and the yinque tree.
- She has applied for cash from the committee to buy hawthorn and other thorned bushes, which would be planted around the cemetery's borders.
adjective ˈθɔːnləsˈθɔrnləs (of a plant) having no thorns. delicate, thornless shrubs and grasses Example sentencesExamples - While citrus grown from seed may come true - that is, be identical to the mother tree - many gardeners plant grafted trees to ensure a good-eating fruit, quicker production and a thornless tree.
- While the species is thorny in its native habitat, many cultivars are thornless, though not all.
- It often forms dense thickets, and these are often thorny, since thornless cultivars appear to retain genes for thorniness that may be expressed as genes recombine in their progeny.
adjective This is a defense posture they use in the wild, as they are heavily armored from top to sides with sharp thornlike scales. Example sentencesExamples - There are 4 rows of these on each side, from the vent rearward, with an equal number of rows of thornlike spines, the latter close set and directed rearward.
- It outcompetes forage grasses, and its thornlike prickles pose a threat to workers picking vegetable crops in infested areas.
- The sharp, thornlike spines along its leaves arch away from the leaf tip instead of towards it.
- Often the dendrites have tiny, thornlike spines on their surfaces, which serve as contact points for parts of other neurons.
adjectiveˈθɔːnpruːfˈθɔrnˌpruf Resistant to being punctured or torn by thorns. a thornproof pair of gloves Example sentencesExamples - I could've worn my jacket, it was quite thornproof, but in that heat it just wasn't worth unrolling it.
- But in the summer heat you certainly don't want to be hauling a full-weight thornproof outfit around.
- The tubes can be easily replaced with thornproof or solid rubber tubes which we carry in stock.
Origin Old English, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch doorn and German Dorn. One of the earliest recorded Old English words, first found before ad 700. A thorn in the side or thorn in the flesh is a source of continual annoyance or trouble. Both expressions are of biblical origin. The Old Testament book of Numbers has a verse which reads: ‘Those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.’ In the New Testament the Second Epistle to the Corinthians has: ‘And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.’ See also rose
Rhymes adorn, born, borne, bourn, Braun, brawn, corn, dawn, drawn, faun, fawn, forborne, forewarn, forlorn, freeborn, lawn, lorn, morn, mourn, newborn, Norn, outworn, pawn, prawn, Quorn, sawn, scorn, Sean, shorn, spawn, suborn, sworn, thrawn, torn, Vaughan, warn, withdrawn, worn, yawn nounTHôrnθɔrn 1A stiff, sharp-pointed, straight or curved woody projection on the stem or other part of a plant. Example sentencesExamples - Here in south Texas, where the mesquite brush and most other native plants have thorns and where not a few critters have a mean bite, it helps to be tough.
- Having bare feet also made it easier to grip when following a ridge and, since there was not the faintest trace of vegetation anywhere, there was no danger from thorns.
- Workers spray rose bushes, harvest stems, strip them of thorns and pluck the blemished petals.
- Certain plants have developed thorns to prevent themselves from being devoured and they work equally well as deterrents for humans too.
- Roses ramble over walls, branches stiff with thorns and laden with huge blossoms.
- I just keep staring at the rose, the petals, the long yellow stamens, stem, the fat red thorns, wanting to say so much.
- Experts have known for some time that cheetahs are particularly prone to eye injuries from thorns and spikes.
- The Romans considered holly to be lucky, and it was later accepted as a symbol by the church - its sharp leaves likened to the thorns worn by Jesus and its berries to the drops of Christ's blood.
- The door was engraved with carvings of dead and live roses with long stems and sharp thorns.
- Nearly all of the plant life protects itself with thorns, barbs and needles.
- I could easily compare her to a rose: a beautiful flower with piercing thorns.
- Plants also possess a great diversity of physical resistance traits, such as spines and thorns.
- The untrained eye cannot always distinguish between a blackberry and a raspberry, since the shapes and sizes of the fruit, leaves, and thorns vary, and there are both red blackberries and black raspberries.
- But I'm so inherently Texan I love it all - the stickers, the spikes, the thorns, the burrs, the nettles, and the rocks.
- The thorns on the rose stem pressed into his skin but he ignored the pain.
- Her finger caught on one of the thorns hidden beneath a leaf.
- The rural imagery is varied: the rising sap, meadows, individual plants, birds, a bedewed rose among its thorns, storm, flood, and fair weather.
- Due to the proposed similarity in function among thorns, spines, and prickles, we will hereafter generically refer to all plants bearing them as armed.
- Sweating on an assembly line, she strips thorns from flowers bound for countries where people can afford such luxuries.
- It is very difficult to miss this flower with its very vibrant orange leaves and dangerous thorns.
Synonyms prickle, spike, barb, spine, bristle - 1.1 A source of discomfort, annoyance, or difficulty; an irritation or obstacle.
the issue has become a thorn in renewing the peace talks See also "a thorn in someone's side" below Example sentencesExamples - Why do our love lives have to be a winding road full of obstacles and thorns?
- Jake is a big thorn in this school.
- However, that thorn has yet to trouble the organisers, who are revitalising and expanding the event.
- His visits to the shrine have been a thorn that is increasingly irritating relations between the two countries.
- A friend and I were sitting around commiserating about the things that get to us: unloading small indignities, comparing thorns.
2A thorny bush, shrub, or tree, especially a hawthorn. Example sentencesExamples - Slowly we progress across the crimson lakes of sand, silver pools of sand, enormous hillocks of sand, skirting giant rocks and stubbornly vibrant patches of thorn bush.
- Pretty soon I sat up with a jerk as something was thrashing like mad in the thorn bush above my head.
- Instead of a well-equipped school their children are taught beneath the shade of a thorn tree.
- In the autumn we intend to plant fruiting species of trees, including gelda rose, hawthorn, hazel, thorn and snowberry.
- When he reached Glastonbury he planted his staff, which then took root and grew into a thorn tree.
- I sit beside my flowering thorn and drink a little wine.
- Huge clusters of thorn bushes, fungus, tree roots and a carpet of dead leaves and pine needles made walking a chore.
- She could see a forest surrounding the town, dense and thick, full of dark, tangled trees and thorns that looked scary and uninviting.
- The undergrowth of thorns and shrubs was bad enough, but in addition the whole place was chock-full of a sort of reed with long leaves about an inch or so broad.
- Point out any potential hazards to the child, such as thorn bushes or poison ivy.
- Along the banks grew knob thorns, sausage trees, vegetable ivory, ilala palms, mangoes, wild figs, tamarinds and mahogany, as well as the ubiquitous acacia.
- I wish to draw everybody's attention to the great value of all established indigenous trees and of camel thorn trees in particular.
- The lions chased him, and savaged his leg before he fell into a thorn bush too dense for them to reach him.
- With the sun at its highest and the birds falling silent, I had a short siesta under a thorn tree.
- The camels seem to enjoy bunches of dry-looking thorn bush.
- To this day, a large and twisted thorn tree - the ‘Friar's Thorn’ - grows on the mound where the ceremonies were carried out and it is near here that the ‘Friar's Stone’ is located.
- ‘They threw me over the back of a camel and told me they would kill me if I cried,’ he said, sitting quietly under a thorn tree on the outskirts of Turalei.
3An Old English and Icelandic runic letter, Þ or þ, representing the dental fricatives /T͟H/ and /TH/. In English it was eventually superseded by the digraph th. Compare with eth Example sentencesExamples - Similarly, thorn may represent either a voiceless or a voiced sound: compare the current use of the digraph th in three and these.
Phrases there is no rose without a thorn proverb Every apparently desirable situation has its share of trouble or difficulty. Example sentencesExamples - But there is no rose without a thorn and they stand for life's difficulties and tragedies.
- There is no rose without a thorn, but people getting all hot and bothered is not going to do Sligo any good.
- Among other things, Stenwick prides itself upon the comeliness of its damsels, but, just as there is no rose without a thorn, so there is no parish whose gallery of feminine pulchritude is utterly flawless.
a thorn in someone's side (or flesh) A source of continual annoyance or trouble. the pastor has long been a thorn in the side of the regime Example sentencesExamples - Has there been a government in the last thirty years which hasn't regarded the our journalists as a thorn in its side?
- We will continue to be a thorn in his side, keeping a close eye on him and interfering with his criminal activities.
- A committed republican, he continued to be a thorn in Cromwell 's side, being elected to the protector's parliaments of 1654 and 1656, but prevented from taking his seat.
- His uncompromising attitude continually made him a thorn in the Establishment 's side.
- I was a thorn in their side because I wouldn't go along with what they wanted to do.
- I'm going to be a thorn in their side until they deliver the school places, until they deliver the public transport, until they deliver the parks and the playgrounds.
- A feisty nuisance of a forward, he was a thorn in their side throughout.
- We will continue to fight, to be there as a thorn in their side.
- Neighbours consider him a kind person who is ready to help others, while criminals see him as a thorn in their side.
- He's still there of course, and will no doubt continue to be a thorn in our side, but the main danger now seems to be past.
Synonyms annoyance, irritant, irritation, source of irritation, source of vexation, source of annoyance, pinprick, pest, bother, trial, torment, plague, inconvenience, nuisance, menace
Origin Old English, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch doorn and German Dorn. |