HORRIPILATE

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HORRIPILATE

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:00 am

• horripilate •

Pronunciation: hê-ri-pê-laytHear it!

Part of Speech: Verb

Meaning: 1. To experience goose flesh, skin-creeping, or bristling hair out of fear. 2. To cause goose flesh, the skin to creep, or the hair to bristle out of fear.

Notes: For centuries English has been struggling to express hair standing up from fear; we resort to expressions like goose flesh, cold chills up the spine, and creepy skin. We resorted to all these phrases when, all along, the medical world has hidden this little gem which resolves this particular expressive problem. Enjoy! The noun from today's word is horripilation [hê-ri-pê-lay-hên] and the adjective, horripilant "causing gooseflesh".

In Play: We have never needed today's Good Word more than we do today: "I still horripilate every time I hear of the catastrophe that the US banking and financial industries have brought to simple mortgages." Don't forget that this word comes replete with a healthy family of useful derivatives: "Nothing horripilates me more than the gratuitous violence of today's horripilant movies and action TV series." We hope you never experience horripilation.

Word History: This word comes from the Latin word horripilatio(n) "bristling", the action of the verb horripilare, composed of horrere "to bristle, stand up" + pilus "hair". No one seems to have a clue as to where horrere came from, though we do know it went into the making of horrible and horror, something that also makes your hair stand on end. The P in pilus should become an F in Germanic languages, which leads us to believe that the same root that produced it, also produced German Filz and its English correlate felt. The Latin root, of course, also underlies English depilatory "hair remover". (Today we thank Robert Fitzgerald for suggesting today's desperately needed Good Word, leaving our hair in place in so doing.)
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gailr
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Postby gailr » Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:42 am

I seem to remember Tim W introducing this word at THE OTHER PLACE. Nice (or is that creepy?) to see it again.

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:56 am

So a horripliation would be a hair-raising experience, which is altogether different from the husbandry of the genus Lepus.
Regards//Larry

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Bailey
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Postby Bailey » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:57 am

This puts me in mind of the Bill Cosby skit [on vinyl] I listened to for hours on end and it never failed to produce a chuckle: Scare me to death!

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Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:12 pm

Which one? The Lights Out episode of "Chicken Heart" where he spread the jello around so the monster couldn't get in and his father slipped on it coming in?
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

Bailey
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Postby Bailey » Sun Mar 23, 2008 10:20 pm

yeah, where he went to scary movies as a kid, and saw the Chicken heart that ate Cleveland.

I looked for the 'lyrics' but all I found was a 30 second download that can only be played on Yahell, I won't go into details but since I was unwilling to pay the surprisingly high MONTHLY costs of it I can't use IT, not even the songs I paid for from them.


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