How to Use thorny in a Sentence

thorny

adjective
Definition of thornynext
Synonyms for thornynext
  • Leave it to the mouths of babes to solve the thorny issues.
    — WSJ, 27 Nov. 2022
  • The issue was among the thorniest in the peace process, which ground to a halt in 2009.
    — Joseph Krauss, Julia Frankel, TIME, 29 Oct. 2024
  • The gloves are best for pruning hedges and working with thorny plants.
    — Renee Freemon Mulvihill, Better Homes & Gardens, 13 Apr. 2023
  • For now, the thorny problem is there just aren’t enough humans who want to do the work.
    — Lee Powell, Washington Post, 20 Sep. 2022
  • The Utah farm's ground is rough and covered with thorny brush, Cooley said.
    — Michael Ruiz, Fox News, 15 June 2022
  • The leaves were massed between and behind thorny rose shrubs along the borders.
    — Ian McEwan, The New Yorker, 1 Aug. 2022
  • The issue of how to handle donations to the protests is perhaps the most thorny.
    — Richard Vanderford, WSJ, 18 Feb. 2022
  • Tara flour is one of two products made from the seed pods of a thorny shrub native to Peru.
    — Sandee Lamotte, CNN, 3 Oct. 2024
  • Those are thorny issues that Garland will need to weigh.
    — Doyle McManuswashington Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 26 June 2022
  • Braun says it’s time to reckon with these thorny questions.
    — Grace Browne, Wired, 15 Feb. 2022
  • My mom’s thorny shrug to my question told me there was no use asking why.
    — Hazlitt, 14 Aug. 2024
  • If just stems that sprout from below the soil are thorny, these are growing from the root stock and should be cut back to the soil surface.
    — Melinda Myers, Journal Sentinel, 22 Mar. 2024
  • Rupp has another angle that might prove thorny for the city.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Jan. 2022
  • If a truck needs to be pulled aside to address some thorny issue, there's a bay for that and time built into the schedule.
    — Ezra Dyer, Car and Driver, 4 Feb. 2022
  • Such is the case with the thorny issue of what to do with the millions of gas cars that the rich world will discard as its fleets are electrified.
    — David Zipper, Vox, 3 Sep. 2024
  • One of the thorniest problems researchers sought to address was the link between thought and language.
    — Sonia Shah, New York Times, 20 Sep. 2023
  • Even if the thorny insurer issues are solved, most of the battle still remains, said Doe-Simkins.
    — Lev Facher, STAT, 31 Aug. 2023
  • The call lasted more than two hours, according to the White House, reflecting the long and thorny agenda.
    — Francesca Chambers, USA TODAY, 28 July 2022
  • The task force’s debates highlighted a thorny push-and-pull between city and county.
    — Christine Condon, Baltimore Sun, 26 Jan. 2024
  • What had been a binding decision on the merits of a thorny issue was swept away.
    — John E. Jones Iii, The Conversation, 5 Apr. 2024
  • But Dallas, like many Southern cities, suffers from a thorny past.
    — Abigail Ronner, Harper's BAZAAR, 11 May 2023
  • No wonder that in times past, this tough tree was planted on farms and ranches as a thorny hedge to keep livestock in place.
    — Luke Miller, Better Homes & Gardens, 11 Sep. 2024
  • Hip-hop has long posed thorny questions about how race and music interact and who has the right to profit from the culture.
    — August Brown, Los Angeles Times, 7 Aug. 2023
  • The negotiations about who would bear the brunt of those cuts were extensive and thorny.
    — Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2023
  • They might be forced to not wade into thorny issues of public concern.
    — Sonia Moghe, CNN, 11 Feb. 2022
  • These thorny questions over the nature of athleticism are not new in women’s sports.
    — New York Times, 16 Feb. 2022
  • No doubt the thorny topic of regulation will be teased out further there.
    — Eamon Barrett, Fortune, 1 Dec. 2023
  • But the case study of Gibraltar does not provide easy answers to the thorny questions raised by the vaccine passport system.
    — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Oct. 2021
  • The deployment of conscripts is a thorny issue in Russia.
    — Ivana Kottasová, CNN, 16 Aug. 2024
  • One pressure point Netanyahu faces is the thorny issue of draft exemption for ultra-Orthodox teenagers.
    — Aluf Benn, Foreign Affairs, 4 Oct. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'thorny.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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