prickly vs scaly

prickly

adj
  • Covered with sharp points. 

  • Easily irritated. 

  • Difficult; complicated; hairy or thorny. 

adv
  • In a prickly manner. 

noun
  • Something that gives a pricking sensation; a sharp object. 

scaly

adj
  • Covered or abounding with scales. 

  • Resembling scales, laminae, or layers. 

  • Composed of scales lying over each other. 

noun
  • The scaly yellowfish (Labeobarbus natalensis). 

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