Picture one thin, hard little point — the kind that runs along a rose stem or covers a hedgehog's back. It is too small to wound anyone. What it does is sting the skin for a second and then let go. Almost everything else this word does can be felt from that one small sting: skin that stings under rough wool, eyes that sting just before tears, and the quick cold feeling that runs over you when you are suddenly afraid or . The point becomes a feeling, and the feeling keeps the point's size — small, sharp, and quickly over.
From the word’s history
The supplied source traces prickle to Old English pricel, analysable as prick plus the ending -le, which carries a sense of smallness. The literal reading is a little prick — which is exactly the size the modern word keeps, in the thing and in the feeling alike.
提供的資料把 prickle 追到古英文 pricel，可以拆成 prick（扎）加上帶「小」味道的字尾 -le。字面上就是「小小的一扎」。這個份量一路留到今天：不管講的是實物的刺，還是身上的感覺，都維持著「小而尖、一下就過」的大小。
Wiktionary etymology supplied in this packet (kaikki extract, source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4): Middle English prykkyl, Old English pricel; by surface analysis prick + -le.
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