make one's flesh creep

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.

Example Sentences

In former days, the hill-peasants assert that it bred in quite low rocks, and several such abandoned eyries have been pointed out to us: but we have only seen its nest in the most stupendous rock-walls—places that make one's flesh creep to survey.

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

If this had happened in a higher order of the animal world, it would make one's flesh creep to watch the Carabus half immersed in the big Cockchafer and rooting out his entrails.

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

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 Project Gutenberg