This rare word appears only in Gideon's confrontation with the men of Succoth, where he threatens (and then carries out) punishment using thorns and briers from the wilderness. The parallel with 'thorns of the wilderness' suggests particularly sharp, painful desert vegetation. Some ancient interpreters understood these as threshing implements studded with sharp stones, but the context and parallel terminology favor thorny plants used to lacerate flesh as an extreme form of corporal punishment.