Meaning

noun any of numerous plants of the family Compositae and especially of the genera Carduus and Cirsium and Onopordum having prickly-edged leaves

originFrom Middle English thistel, from Old English þistel, from Proto-West Germanic *þistil, from Proto-Germanic *þistilaz. *þīh- from *teyg-, which is a variant of Proto-Indo-European *(s)teyg- (“to prick”); from this same Proto-Indo-European root comes English stick. Cognates include Scots thrissel, German Distel, Dutch distel, and Old Norse and Icelandic þistill.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0