horripilation
Americannoun
noun
-
a technical name for goose flesh
-
the erection of any short bodily hairs
Usage
What does horripilation mean? Horripilation is a technical term for what happens when your hair stands up, such as when you’re cold, scared, or excited. We popularly call this goose bumps (or goose pimples, gooseflesh, or goose skin). Other technical names for it are piloerection and cutis anserina. Horripilation doesn’t only happen in humans. When some animals get startled or threatened, their fur raises in response. (When the fur becomes raised in this way on the neck, such as on a dog or cat, we say they’ve raised their hackles.)The same thing happens in humans, and is usually most noticeable in places where we don’t have much hair or the hair is very fine, such as the arms and neck. The verb horripilate means to trigger horripilation—to give someone goose bumps, as in Horror movies have the power to horripilate the viewer. It can also mean to experience horripilation—to get goose bumps. Example: A well-known example of horripilation in animals is the raising of a porcupine’s quills.
Etymology
Origin of horripilation
First recorded in 1650–60; from Late Latin horripilātiōn- (stem of horripilātiō ); see horripilate, -ion
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.
Shivaree, chthonian, erumpent, tintinnabulation, exonumia, requiescat, deipnosophist, omphaloskepsis, horripilation, deliquesce, apopemptic.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 26, 2021
I can’t have been the only person who spent the evening in a pretty much constant state of horripilation.
From New York Times • Nov. 25, 2018
How shall any miserable man render in clay the quivering of flesh to an Idea,—the inexplicable horripilation of a Thought?
From Some Chinese Ghosts by Hearn, Lafcadio
The whole company were in a state of horripilation.
From The Silver Lining A Guernsey Story by Roussel, John
Sambhrama here means, probably, joy, or that gratification which shows itself in horripilation.
From The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 Books 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 by Ganguli, Kisari Mohan
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.
