kick against the pricks
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To resist or fight against something that is inevitable or unstoppable
Literally: kick against thorny plants
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
When I had stopped kicking against the pricks I began to ask myself how much longer I could have gone on without somebody noticing the change in my figure.
Dean, meanwhile, made Rebel Without a Cause, an exploitive title for a young actor who kicked against the pricks.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “kick against the pricks” mean?
To resist or fight against something that is inevitable or unstoppable Literally: kick against thorny plants
Is “kick against the pricks” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.