horripilating
Syllables: hor·ri·pi·lat·ingUK/hɒˌɹɪpɪˈleɪtɪŋ/US/hɑˌɹipiˈleɪtiŋ/
horripilating adjective: causing horripilation. Also the present participle and gerund of horripilate.
Adjective
horripilating (comparative more horripilating, superlative most horripilating)
- Causing horripilation.
- Horrendous, horrifying, terrifying.
- I was sadly shocked, however, when he said he could prove that God hates the truth; the effect was horripilating.1845, Edmund Hepple, Truth and Falsehood Defined and Exemplified: A Scene at Quintern Abbey, Newcastle upon Tyne: Printed by T. & J. Hodgson, Union Street, →OCLC, page 105
- Fear, the product of guilt, is a true night-plant. Like some of those gigantic fungi the botanists tell of, it springs up in the dark, and in an hour of restless tossing, sudorific, horripilating wretchedness, canopies our bed with a phantom toad-stool of gigantic size. The load that the conscience...[1873], W[illiam] S[tarbuck] Mayo, chapter XVII, in Never Again (The Library of Favourite Authors, British and Foreign; I), London: Ward, Lock, & Tyler, Warwick House, Paternoster Row, →OCLC, page 192
Also used as
horripilating is also the present participle and gerund of horripilate.
Examples of horripilating in a sentence
- Always something of a timpani concerto among symphonies—besides the famous solos in the Scherzo there is the horripilating tattoo that all but drowns out the first movement recapitulation, […]1995, Richard Taruskin, “Resisting the Ninth”, in Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press...
- The idea of being killed in your sleep by an enemy you'd never even seen was horripilating.2015, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, Keep the Home Fires Burning, London: Sphere Books, →ISBN:
Synonyms of horripilating
Forms of horripilating
| comparative | more horripilating |
|---|---|
| superlative | most horripilating |
Origin of horripilating
From horripilate + -ing.
Questions about horripilating
- What does horripilating mean?
- Horripilating means causing horripilation.
- How do you use horripilating in a sentence?
- Always something of a timpani concerto among symphonies—besides the famous solos in the Scherzo there is the horripilating tattoo that all but drowns out the first movement recapitulation, […]
- What part of speech is horripilating?
- Horripilating is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce horripilating?
- Horripilating is pronounced /hɒˌɹɪpɪˈleɪtɪŋ/ (UK).
Words near horripilating in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: horripilating (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “horripilating.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/horripilating. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.