Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. in religious terms, extremely ritualistic or High Church Anglican [the SE spike or spire of a trad. church].

1893		W. Bright letter 20 Oct. in Sel. Letters (1903) 348: The ultras, as they might be called, on the Catholic side, present Church ideas, too often, in a form altogether too hard to be attractive; I believe I am said to have called it ‘spiky’, in a letter to my friend the Principal of Ely College [OED].
1921		Church Times 12 Aug. 147/3: We wonder what would be thought of some of his sayings if they were uttered by a spiky young curate to-day [OED].
1925		E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 154: He was one of those ‘spiky’ young men, exceedingly fond of dressing up in a scarlet cassock.
1950		A. Wilson Such Darling Dodos 34: She became a daily communicant and delighted the more ‘spikey’ of her neighbours.
1962		Times Lit. Supplement 13 July 505/1: Her story is of the American priest, Charles Phillips, whose churchmanship would in England be rated high-to-spiky.
1977		B. Pym Quartet in Autumn 212: He had been a server at the spikiest Anglo-Catholic church .

2. aggressive, harsh, unsympathetic, uncompromising, angry.

1915		Drew & Evans Grifter 81: ‘He’s spikey over me havin’ him yesterday’.
1959		M. Richler Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1964) 45: Where Duddy Kravitz sprung from the boys grew up dirty and sad, spiky also.
1972		R. Kahn Boys of Summer 393: ‘Ya want a guy that comes to play,’ suggests Leo Durocher, whose personal relationship with Robinson was spiky.
2000		Observer Screen 9 Apr. 3: A bunch of women shooting the feistily feminine breeze [...] enjoying the sort of spiky banter.