Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The bristling of the body hair, as from fear or cold; goose bumps.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A contraction of the cutaneous muscles, producing the erection of the hairs and the condition known as cutis anserina or goose-flesh.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Med.) A real or fancied bristling of the hair of the head or body, resulting from disease, terror, chilliness, etc.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A real or fancied bristling of the hair of the head or body, resulting from disease, terror, chilliness, etc.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun reflex erection of hairs of the skin in response to cold or emotional stress or skin irritation
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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[FN#1] This "horripilation," for which we have the poetical term
Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855
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When Jamrkan heard these words, the ears of his heart were opened; his skin shuddered with horripilation and he said, O my lord, what shall I say that
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What a glorious, delicious, chocolate-rich meaningful word is horripilation!
Archive 2008-11-01 Glenda Larke 2008
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What a glorious, delicious, chocolate-rich meaningful word is horripilation!
Horripilation Glenda Larke 2008
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And the haunting melody of Lara's theme, Maurice Jarre's superb composition that runs like a unifying thread through every scene, inspires horripilation even as we recall the notes!
Lara's Theme 2007
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Whether EL ORFANATO will live up to my admittedly high expectations and do the sack-face spook subgenre proud remains to be seen... but it's got all the indications of having ballistic horripilation power.
Bag your face! Arbogast 2007
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My cow-orker Jason Schultz reports on a breaking new DMCA horripilation: a court has ordered a company to stop fixing tape-drives because in so doing, it makes unauthorized access of a copyrighted "Maintenance Code."
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Barbarians in turn, and pressed their thumbs; then he rubbed it on his garment, for their viscous skin gave a rude, soft impression to the touch, a greasy tingling which induced horripilation.
Salammbo 2003
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Gord felt the hair on the back of his neck rise In horripilation at the nearness of the ray.
Night Arrant Gygax, Gary 1987
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The whole company were in a state of horripilation.
The Silver Lining A Guernsey Story John Roussel
trivet commented on the word horripilation
The bristling of the body hair, as from fear or cold; goose bumps.
(Late Latin horripilti, horripiltin, to bristle with hairs : horrre, to tremble + pilre, to grow hair (from pilus, hair).)
September 23, 2007
brusselsprouts commented on the word horripilation
Completely hideous word for goosebumps.
Goosebumps is so much sweeter. Although now I think about it...a bumping goose? Wtf?
January 27, 2008
asativum commented on the word horripilation
And yet, when you think of the bumps on the cold, plucked skin of a dressed goose, it's maybe a little less sweet.
Goose sure is tasty, though.
January 27, 2008
yarb commented on the word horripilation
...a sense of horripilation, his hair prickling along his scalp...
- Malcolm Lowry, October Ferry to Gabriola
July 30, 2008
jmjarmstrong commented on the word horripilation
JM in researching the word 'horripilation' discovered something that was so awfully, dreadfully, frightful that it made his hair stand on end.
February 1, 2009
qms commented on the word horripilation
A horror flick’s tricky manipulation
Will interweave fear and titillation.
The body is stirred
By pleasures inferred
And chilled to a lovely horripilation.
March 21, 2019