prickle vs thorn

prickle

noun
  • A small, sharp pointed object, such as a thorn. 

  • A tingling sensation of mild discomfort. 

  • A kind of willow basket. 

verb
  • To feel a prickle. 

  • To cause (someone) to feel a prickle; to prick. 

thorn

noun
  • Any shrub or small tree that bears thorns, especially a hawthorn. 

  • That which pricks or annoys; anything troublesome. 

  • A letter of Latin script (capital: Þ, small: þ), borrowed from the futhark; today used only in Icelandic to represent the voiceless dental fricative, but originally used in several early Germanic scripts, including Old English where it represented the dental fricatives that are today written th (Old English did not have phonemic voicing distinctions for fricatives). 

  • A sharp protective spine of a plant. 

verb
  • To pierce with, or as if with, a thorn (sharp pointed object). 

How often have the words prickle and thorn occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )