What's the difference between pierce and prick?

Pierce


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To thrust into, penetrate, or transfix, with a pointed instrument.
  • (v. t.) To penetrate; to enter; to force a way into or through; to pass into or through; as, to pierce the enemy's line; a shot pierced the ship.
  • (v. t.) Fig.: To penetrate; to affect deeply; as, to pierce a mystery.
  • (v. i.) To enter; to penetrate; to make a way into or through something, as a pointed instrument does; -- used literally and figuratively.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) At pH 7.0, reduction is complete after 6 to 10 h. These results together with an earlier study concerning the positions of the two most readily reduced bonds (Cornell J.S., and Pierce, J.G.
  • (2) Cook, who has postbox-red hair and a painful-looking piercing in his lower lip, was now on stage in discussion with four fellow YouTubers, all in their early 20s.
  • (3) Meanwhile the Brooklyn Nets, who have been dealing with nothing but bad news since the start of the regular season, will be without Paul Pierce for 2-4 weeks, also due to a right hand fracture.
  • (4) After properly fixing the vas deferens with a ring clamp, the surgeon pierces the scrotal skin, vas sheath, and vas deferens in the midline with a curved dissecting clamp held at a 45 degree angle from horizontal.
  • (5) The dorsal interosseous muscles gave off tendons which pierced the transverse laminae or passed deep to the transverse laminae, and attached to the bases of the proximal phalanges.
  • (6) Four patients received a subclavian intraaortic balloon pump, two were supported with a Novacor left ventricular assist system, three patients received Pierce-Donachy ventricular assist devices, and one patient received a Jarvik 7 total artificial heart.
  • (7) Lisbeth Salander is a violent and emotionally uncommunicative tattooed and much-pierced goth who grew up in care, and has had serious mental health issues.
  • (8) Ear-piercing techniques include needles, safety pins, sharpened studs, and self-piercing kits.
  • (9) The price G4S is paying amounts to 8.5 times of top-line earnings - "by no means cheap," said Seymour Pierce analyst Kevin Lapwood.
  • (10) But the character – compounded of piercing sanity and existential despair, infinite hesitation and impulsive action, self-laceration and observant irony – is so multi-faceted, it is bound to coincide at some point with an actor’s particular gifts.
  • (11) This paper draws attention to tool marks in the area of pierced rib cartilage and considers the possibilities of their analysis.
  • (12) Fourteen patients were supported with a Pierce-Donachy ventricular assist device (left ventricular assist in seven, right ventricular assist in three, both in four); nine were supported with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, two with a Medtronic centrifugal left ventricular assist pump, one with biventricular Biomedicus pumps, and one with a Novacor left ventricular assist system.
  • (13) A scanning electron microscope (SEM) study of the mouthparts of Psoroptes cuniculi from rabbits and P. ovis from sheep established that they are identical in morphology and are adapted for surface feeding rather than piercing the epidermis.
  • (14) The footage beamed back from the liberated districts of Ramadi is grim: a ghost town littered with debris and smashed concrete, destroyed storefronts, plumes of smoke, the sound of gunfire piercing the air as Iraqi soldiers speak on camera.
  • (15) We stress the need for strict enforcement of correct sterilization procedures whenever needles are used to pierce skin.
  • (16) By stepping back from some of the more radical solutions suggested before the election – such as the complete separation of high street banks from "casino" investment banks proposed by business secretary Vince Cable – the commission left the banks "secretly quite pleased", according to Bruce Packard, banks analyst at Seymour Pierce.
  • (17) In 2013, actor Pierce Brosnan’s daughter, Charlotte, died from ovarian cancer.
  • (18) The piercing intelligence-wise in terms of humans has been very difficult all along."
  • (19) The passage through Congress of legislation such as the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act , which reduced the racially significant disparity between punishments for crack and powder cocaine, and the Death in Custody Act , which introduces a federal record of deaths in police custody, have shown that incarceration – and perhaps incarceration alone – is able to pierce through the partisan gridlock of Washington.
  • (20) Benteke and the tireless Andreas Weimann take the plaudits for their four passes that pierced the Liverpool defence and saw the Austrian forward sweep home Benteke's exquisite back-heel.

Prick


Definition:

  • (v.) That which pricks, penetrates, or punctures; a sharp and slender thing; a pointed instrument; a goad; a spur, etc.; a point; a skewer.
  • (v.) The act of pricking, or the sensation of being pricked; a sharp, stinging pain; figuratively, remorse.
  • (v.) A mark made by a pointed instrument; a puncture; a point.
  • (v.) A point or mark on the dial, noting the hour.
  • (v.) The point on a target at which an archer aims; the mark; the pin.
  • (v.) A mark denoting degree; degree; pitch.
  • (v.) A mathematical point; -- regularly used in old English translations of Euclid.
  • (v.) The footprint of a hare.
  • (v.) A small roll; as, a prick of spun yarn; a prick of tobacco.
  • (n.) 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.
  • (n.) To fix by the point; to attach or hang by puncturing; as, to prick a knife into a board.
  • (n.) To mark or denote by a puncture; to designate by pricking; to choose; to mark; -- sometimes with off.
  • (n.) 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.
  • (n.) To ride or guide with spurs; to spur; to goad; to incite; to urge on; -- sometimes with on, or off.
  • (n.) To affect with sharp pain; to sting, as with remorse.
  • (n.) 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.
  • (n.) To render acid or pungent.
  • (n.) To dress; to prink; -- usually with up.
  • (n.) To run a middle seam through, as the cloth of a sail.
  • (n.) To trace on a chart, as a ship's course.
  • (n.) To drive a nail into (a horse's foot), so as to cause lameness.
  • (n.) To nick.
  • (v. i.) To be punctured; to suffer or feel a sharp pain, as by puncture; as, a sore finger pricks.
  • (v. i.) To spur onward; to ride on horseback.
  • (v. i.) To become sharp or acid; to turn sour, as wine.
  • (v. i.) To aim at a point or mark.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) These results have implications in utilizing codeine phosphate as a positive skin prick test control for allergy testing.
  • (2) The diagnosis of occupational allergy was based on history, skin prick tests and RAST to the pollen.
  • (3) Prick tests performed on 16 different condom brands showed that 4 brands caused positive reactions in 52-67% of patients.
  • (4) One hundred and forty-four had non-allergic and 69 allergic asthma verified retrospectively by positive skin prick test in 1988.
  • (5) The results of this investigation are clearly in contrast to earlier earlier reports, in that there was a very good correlation between prick test, RAST and case history.
  • (6) The prick tests, using both commercial allergens and specific extracts prepared from the most common types of coffee and their corresponding sacks, confirmed a sensitization in 21 workers (9.6%).
  • (7) There were statistically significant exposure-response relations between exposure and symptoms from eyes and upper airways, dry cough, positive skin prick test, and specific IgE and IgG antibodies.
  • (8) The effect of 4.4 mg azelastine administered orally on airway responsiveness, skin prick testing, daily peak expiratory flow rates and symptoms of asthma was compared with placebo in a 7 week double-blind, parallel group study of 24 patients with extrinsic asthma.
  • (9) Subjective pain ratings of mucosal pin-prick decreased a surprisingly small degree after application of both solutions.
  • (10) Having said that, though, the man is clearly a bit of a prick and one with a serial addiction to publicity."
  • (11) In allergologic out-patient departments of Dubrovnik, Split, Sibenik, Zadar, Pula and Rijeka, 300 patients with pollinosis have been tested by the application of the prick method of group allergens of grass, tree and weed pollen, particularly of Parietariae (pellitory) pollen.
  • (12) In comparison with conventional allergen preparations immunologically characterized allergens were tested by skin-prick-tests for reactions.
  • (13) Exclusion of asthmatics and taking into account smoking and skin prick test positivity yielded mostly similar results.
  • (14) The results of the Phadezym-RAST and IgE-Quick correlated very well (r = 0.96) and both in-vitro methods corresponded to the Skin-Prick-Test (greater than 90%).
  • (15) Throughout history there have been periods of wild exuberance followed by the pricking of bubbles.
  • (16) By skin prick testing comparable results were obtained with both extracts.
  • (17) In both groups of patients, there was a low incidence of the causes of post-cordotomy pain recurrence contralateral to the lesion, i.e., deafferentation pain, fading of analgesia, and pain above the levels up to which deep pin-prick analgesia had been obtained.
  • (18) In making a computerized cephalometric analysis, first the film should be traced, and the landmarks pricked and manually digitalized into an X-Y coordinate system.
  • (19) Sections of eggs, fixed 20 to 60 s following fertilization or pricking, show that the tubular cisternae have disappeared and the clusters of cisternae have opened to give rise to longer cisternae arranged in chains.
  • (20) Bronchial responsiveness to histamine and skin prick test reactions to airborne allergens were measured in a random population sample of 891 adults and 1293 schoolchildren.