horripilate
/hɔˈɹɪpəˌleɪt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 0.00 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To bristle in fear or horror; to have goose bumps or goose pimples.
Example Sentences
- "Another volume of ghost stories by Mrs. [Catherine] Crowe!—as grim and horrifying as the "Night Side of Nature," which sends one to bed with a shudder, and lends an awful deliberation to the act of putting out the candle. These pages would literally be frightful if they were not at the same time fascinating. You never know at what turn in the narrative to look for the sudden bit of description, which is to thrill the nerves and horripilate the forehead."
- "When Hel shrugged and changed the subject diplomatically, the nape of Diamond's neck horripilated with embarrassment."
- "A cold wind had blown through his seven-year-old skin, bringing with it the age of reason, thrilling his bones, horripilating its way up his spine."
- "Miraculously, when he returned, […] no one had stolen, broken into, or vandalized the Saab: there it sat in all its silver magnificence on a lousy street in a rotten neighborhood, rainwater horripilating its voluptuous skin."
- "Phadampa Sangye gives us a brief characterization of the cremation grounds and the lands surrounding them in the introductory passage to Diamond-Songs of the Adepts, calling it "a region difficult for humans to travel, a village where ghouls and zombies wander, a place where the inhuman of the earth wander, the place of the action ḍākinīs, [where] Death's hair horripilates and the demons are dread-filled upon sight of it.""
Etymology
From Late Latin horripilātus, perfect passive participle of horripilō (“(of hairs) to bristle”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from horreō (“to bristle, shiver, dread”) + pilus (“hair”) + -ō (first conjugation verb-forming suffix), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰers- (“to bristle”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: horripilātus, *ǵʰers-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /hɔˈɹɪpəˌleɪt/
- British English: /hɒˈɹɪpɪˌleɪt/