Covered with or full of bristles; stiff and coarse to the touch.
From bristle + -y (adjective suffix). Old English byrst (bristle) + -y, evolved to describe things resembling or covered in bristles.
A person with bristly stubble has about 20,000 hairs on their face, and they regrow at a rate of about a millimeter per day—that's why the '5 o'clock shadow' appears so quickly!
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