hair-raising
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of hair-raising
First recorded in 1895–1900
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“Mother Mary” is as hair-raising as it is eyebrow-raising, all spectral senselessness until, out of nowhere, the eeriness gives way to a startling profundity as the film explores remorse with biblical repercussions.
From Salon ● Apr. 24, 2026
Instead, he delivers his hair-raising message—that we’re staring at “a humiliating and bloody defeat” if we go to war with China—in a jaunty, clever and sometimes breathless book.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
England have a recent history of hair-raising starts to World Cups.
From BBC ● Feb. 8, 2026
His writing is sinewy and unsparing, as enchanting and hair-raising as the forest itself.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 29, 2026
Aunt Petunia let out a hair-raising shriek; nothing this filthy had entered her house in living memory.
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
