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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Prick \Prick\, verb (used with an object) [imp. & p. p. {Pricked}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Pricking}.] [AS. prician; akin to LG. pricken, D. prikken, Dan. prikke, Sw. pricka. See {Prick}, noun, and cf. {Prink}, {Prig}.]
1. To pierce slightly with a sharp-pointed instrument or substance; to make a puncture in, or to make by puncturing; to drive a fine point into; as, to prick one with a pin, needle, etc.; to prick a card; to prick holes in paper.
2. To fix by the point; to attach or hang by puncturing; as, to prick a knife into a board. --Sir I. Newton.
The cooks prick it [a slice] on a prong of iron. --Sandys.
3. To mark or denote by a puncture; to designate by pricking; to choose; to mark; -- sometimes with off.
Some who are pricked for sheriffs. --Bacon.
Let the soldiers for duty be carefully pricked off. --Sir W. Scott.
Those many, then, shall die: their names are pricked. --Shak.
4. To mark the outline of by puncturing; to trace or form by pricking; to mark by punctured dots; as, to prick a pattern for embroidery; to prick the notes of a musical composition. --Cowper.
5. To ride or guide with spurs; to spur; to goad; to incite; to urge on; -- sometimes with on, or off.
Who pricketh his blind horse over the fallows. --Chaucer.
The season pricketh every gentle heart. --Chaucer.
My duty pricks me on to utter that. --Shak.
6. To affect with sharp pain; to sting, as with remorse. ''I was pricked with some reproof.'' --Tennyson.
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart. --Acts ii. 37.
7. To make sharp; to erect into a point; to raise, as something pointed; -- said especially of the ears of an animal, as a horse or dog; and usually followed by up; -- hence, to prick up the ears, to listen sharply; to have the attention and interest strongly engaged. ''The courser . . . pricks up his ears.'' --Dryden.
8. To render acid or pungent. [Obs.] --Hudibras.
9. To dress; to prink; -- usually with up. [Obs.]
10. (Naut) (a) To run a middle seam through, as the cloth of a sail. (b) To trace on a chart, as a ship's course.
11. (Far.) (a) To drive a nail into (a horse's foot), so as to cause lameness. (b) To nick.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Pricking \Prick"ing\, noun
1. The act of piercing or puncturing with a sharp point. ''There is that speaketh like the prickings of a sword.'' --Prov. xii. 18 [1583].
2. (Far.) (a) The driving of a nail into a horse's foot so as to produce lameness. (b) Same as {Nicking}.
3. A sensation of being pricked. --Shak.
4. The mark or trace left by a hare's foot; a prick; also, the act of tracing a hare by its footmarks. [Obs.]
5. Dressing one's self for show; prinking. [Obs.]
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
pricking
noun: the act of puncturing with a small point; "he gave the balloon a small prick" [syn: {prick}]
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