make one's flesh creep

Idioms  

1. Also, make one's skin crawl. Cause one to shudder with disgust or fear, as in That picture makes my flesh creep, or Cockroaches make my skin crawl. This idiom alludes to the feeling of having something crawl over one's body or skin. The first term appeared in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1727): “Something in their countenance made my flesh creep with a horror I cannot express.” The variant dates from the late 1800s.

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Example Sentences

But that," I said, "would be too horrible for anything—to turn the terrors of death into a sort of conjuring trick—a dramatic entertainment, to make one's flesh creep!

From The Child of the Dawn by Benson, Arthur Christopher

The mere mention of the place was enough to make one’s flesh creep.

From Parkhurst Boys And Other Stories of School Life by Reed, Talbot Baines

Doesn't it make one's flesh creep to have a mother like that?

From Somehow Good by De Morgan, William Frend

With them were men who played upon strange instruments which made uncanny noises of a sort to make one's flesh creep.

From Following the Equator, Part 5 by Twain, Mark

I had slidden down the balusters when I was a boy, and thought nothing of it, but to slide down the balusters in a railway-train is a thing to make one's flesh creep.

From A Tramp Abroad — Volume 05 by Twain, Mark