briar patch
A thick tangle of thorny plants that will shred your britches.
Also called brier patch, bramble patch.
Updated September 21, 2026
briar patch pronunciation
/BRAR patch/
Meaning
A whole mess of briars growing tight together: blackberry canes, greenbrier, wild rose, whatever prickly brush has taken over a fence row or ditch bank. One sticker bush scratches. A briar patch eats pants, dog hide, and any bright idea about cutting across the field. Folks also borrow the word for a sticky mess of a situation, and the old Br'er Rabbit story makes it sound like home if you know how to duck through it.
How folks use it
- “Don't cut through there. That's a briar patch and your jeans won't make it.”
- “Hound ran straight into the briar patch after that rabbit and came out looking tore up.”
Origin and etymology
Briar (also spelled brier) goes back to older English for a thorny plant, and "patch" just means a dense clump. The phrase shows up in American writing by the late 1700s. It stuck hard in Southern and Appalachian talk, and the Br'er Rabbit tale helped keep it famous: the rabbit begs not to get thrown in the briar patch because that thorny thicket is where he was born and raised.
Frequently asked questions
Is a briar patch the same as a sticker bush?
Close, but bigger. A sticker bush is one plant. A briar patch is a whole thicket of them grown into each other.