bristler

From bristle +‎ -er.

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bristler (plural bristlers)

1. Someone or something that bristles.
   • 1866, Charles Bullock, Our Own Fireside, page 25:

     but study this useful little insect, and we find that by care and attention we may not only manage to approach the little bristler, without fear of its weapon, but extract so many sweets, that when we know its service, we wonder how any one on earth can be so silly as to quarrel with it!

   • 1896, The New England Magazine - Volume 20, page 127:

     Is it the braggart and the bristler, the man who has nothing to learn, who would build a wall between America and other lands, or would array America against the world;

   • 1977, Elizabeth Boyden Howes, Sheila Moon, The Choicemaker, →ISBN, page 68:

     We are the "bristlers," the easily hurt and hostile, the solitary ones, the "people are bums" man, the "don't let anyone know" woman.

   • 2012, Josh Lewin, Ballgame!, →ISBN:

     The old school baseball people bristled (Showalter was probably the chief bristler), but the fans fell in love with his big swings and big personality.

   • 2014, Ally Blake, Her Hottest Summer Yet, →ISBN:

     And Claudia wasn't a bristler by nature; she was as bubbly as they came.

2. (informal) A bristled pig.
   • 1840, James Hogg, The Poetical Works of the Ettrick Shepherd:

     'Twas he who rear'd the roe-deer's brood, And the young bristler of the wood ;

   • 1851, Carpet-bag: A Literary Journal - Volume 1, page 115:

     Music on the hog-octave. The other bristlers whipped into the back-ground.

   • 1873, The Oriental Sporting Magazine: From June 1828 to June 1833:

     Duttoo arrived as soon almost as we did at the tents, with more good news, and we were remounted and among the bristlers again in no time.

   • 1908, Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio:

     Also David W. Magie, tamed as the originator of the Magie or Poland China hog, produced from four distinct breeds of bristlers about the year 1840.

   • 1907, Martial, Epigrams, page 77:

     A beast, like Calydon's of yore, Boasts headbands never bristler wore.

   • 2010, François Hotman, Ralph E. Giesey, J. H. M. Salmon, Francogallia, →ISBN, page 281:

     This being so, we may note that foreigners who disliked our long-haired kings no only insulted them by calling them the 'bristled ones' butals said their bristles were a thing they had in common with lions, horses and swine (which for this reason are all called Setosi and Setigeri, bristlers), and they even extended the insult by saying they had pig's bristles.

3. (obsolete) A conman.
   • 1902, George O. Shields, Recreation - Volume 16, page 212:

     A friend of mine having occasion to show this section to a party of 4 bristlers, states that they withdrew a pace and seemed to be computing among themselves.

   • 2004, Aaron Wilkes, Renaissance, Revolution and Reformation: Britain 1485-1750, →ISBN:

     A bristle was a loaded or crooked dice. lt was specially weighted which meant that it fell on whichever number the bristler chose.

4. (obsolete, derogatory) A person of low social class.
   • 1915, Eliakim Littell, Robert S. Littell, The Living Age - Volume 287, page 681:

     But I own I like a quiet unobtrusive bristler — the sort of man who doesn't want to take you beyond ten times ten in the multiplication table.

5. (obsolete, slang) A soldier who is part of a company that carries pikes.
   • 1843, George Moir Bussey, Thomas Gaspey, The pictorial history of France and of the French people, page 71:

     Amont the thirty thousand men led to war by Charles VIII., six thousand Swiss soldiers were especially remarked, formed in large square battalions, of one thousand men each, which were called "bristlers," in allusion to the pikes which they presented on all sides.

   • 1859, Phineas Camp, W. N. Duane, Poems of the Mohawk Valley, and on Scenes in Palestine, page 117:

     Many attacks and retreats did Bruin make boldly, notwithstanding the roar and warlike phalanx attitude of the bristlers.

• Bristlers