Verb (used without object) : The hog bristled up. ,The man bristled when I asked him to move. ,The plain bristled with bayonets. The project bristled with difficulties.    From Dictionary.com. 

It's warm and muscular and covered in bristling needles of short white and brown hair.    From Wordnik.com.  [Yoga With Horses Aims For Deeper Connection At The Star Peak Stables In Golden] Reference

Finally, during a vote by owners still bristling from the 1981 strike, Kuhn did not earn re-election Nov. 1, 1982.    From Wordnik.com.  [Kuhn navigated rough waters during tenure] Reference

They're conservative and deeply religious, too; we disagree on many things; but "bristling" and "prone to mockery" they're not.    From Wordnik.com.  [Philocrites: Beware 'Old Testament' comparisons.] Reference

Does this count as "bristling" as Lane has it, or is this just real debate, and it overexcites us because we don't get to see enough of it?.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2006-01-01] Reference

There was a feeling of horror, a kind of bristling in the darkness, and a sense of blood.    From Wordnik.com.  [Sons and Lovers] Reference

A kind of bristling in the darkness, and a sense of blood.    From Wordnik.com.  [Sons and Lovers] Reference

The first vehicle is full of soldiers bristling with AK-47s.    From Wordnik.com.  [Sudan's 'Arrow Boys' Challenge Militants] Reference

"See you in Guinea first," muttered Bandy-legs, bristling up.    From Wordnik.com.  [With Trapper Jim in the North Woods] Reference

At his house I am loved for my guard dog bristling usefulness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Off Shoots] Reference

Each vehicle, bristling with firepower, carries about 10 soldiers.    From Wordnik.com.  [Exiting Iraq, U.S. Brigade Traces Invasion Route] Reference

Yet Mel felt himself bristling like a dog in the dark of the moon.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Memory of Mars] Reference

Assiniboine were bristling with dangers instead of being the abode of.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Maid of the Whispering Hills] Reference

The coarse mouth under the bristling moustache, four times the size of.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Village of Vagabonds] Reference

For years they've cowered in their damp trenches, bristling in the heat.    From Wordnik.com.  [Ahmed Moor: America Cannot Go to War for Israel] Reference

Let anyone traduce Mrs. Gorman, and Dan was bristling all over like an indignant porcupine.    From Wordnik.com.  [Grey Town An Australian Story] Reference

Similar aggression is playing out in Europe, and competitors around the world are bristling.    From Wordnik.com.  [P] Reference

Unlike Bork, who was bearded and bristling at his hearings, Starr radiates a kind of boyish charm.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Bush Court] Reference

We were the only ones on the rink, except for a foul-tempered skate guard with a bristling mustache.    From Wordnik.com.  [Kate Fridkis: Homeschooling: For Trendy Brooklynites? Or People Like Me?] Reference

The sudden gleam of uplifted swords revealed it, the quiver of bristling bayonets wrote it in blood.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865] Reference

It turns out Laurence Fishburne may have been bristling at his daughter's career choices for some time now.    From Wordnik.com.  [Montana Fishburne Prostitution Bust: Laurence Fishburne's Daughter Arrested Last Year] Reference

But in this sacred place, bristling with guns and stained by blood, nobody could claim to have an easy answer.    From Wordnik.com.  [Under Siege In Bethlehem] Reference

And its not surprising that they would read Obamas impenetrable self-possession as the sign of a bristling ego.    From Wordnik.com.  [Geoffrey Nunberg: 'The I's Don't Have It'] Reference

Even these very modest and qualified initiatives have the uniform services and their allied businesses bristling.    From Wordnik.com.  [Michael Brenner: Pentagon Spending -- Music Goes Round, and Round...] Reference

 In rain boots, I crunched across remnants of fish skeletons bristling from the exposed pond floor to get closer.    From Wordnik.com.  [Dynamite] Reference

A mask with distorted features, a pale green complexion, surrounded by a bristling mass of hair, amuses them greatly.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo] Reference

It startled the man, who's red eyes peered up through the glass, the veins bristling like an angry cartoon character's.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Window (Part II)] Reference

The conversation is bristling with them right now, but it would be kind of a boorish thing to analyze our conversation.    From Wordnik.com.  [Lincoln's Legacy Celebrated In Dance] Reference

Japan has long been a country of notebooks — the lightest laptop computers, bristling with speed, memory and features.    From Wordnik.com.  [Japan’s Netbook Effect] Reference

Then, as Patrick's bushy eyebrows came together in a bristling frown, she added: "But he remained in ignorance of the fact.".    From Wordnik.com.  [The Hermit of Far End] Reference

Canada was miraculously preserved at this time from the bristling guns of a formidable English fleet, as we read in history.    From Wordnik.com.  [Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois] Reference

The General sprang up at these words like a furious lion, his moustache bristling, his nostrils dilating, his chest heaving.    From Wordnik.com.  [The French Immortals Series — Complete] Reference

    The Officer continued  knocking, black bushy Scotsman mustache bristling with each thorned, treeknocking, hallow thump.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Shreds of Flame] Reference

CNN's Anderson Cooper stood out from the pack with his Hurricane Katrina coverage, tearing up on air and bristling at politicians.    From Wordnik.com.  [Fast Chat: Anderson Cooper] Reference

The man who rises in the morning, with his feelings all bristling like the quills of a hedge-hog, simply needs to be knocked down.    From Wordnik.com.  [Lessons in Life A Series of Familiar Essays] Reference

His anticipations collapsed in the face of these bristling realities, among which he felt his isolation more deeply than ever before.    From Wordnik.com.  [The French Immortals Series — Complete] Reference