that gives me the creeps
that frightens me
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Jellyfish, which give many swimmers THE CREEPS, are increasing in the majority of the world's coastal ecosystems, UBC researchers have found in what is being billed as the first global study of the abundance of jellyfish.
(The Vancouver Sun newspaper)
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Spider gives pupils THE CREEPS
A dangerous Brazilian spider has been found hiding in a bunch of bananas at a North Yorkshire primary school.
(BBC News)
(The Vancouver Sun newspaper)
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Spider gives pupils THE CREEPS
A dangerous Brazilian spider has been found hiding in a bunch of bananas at a North Yorkshire primary school.
(BBC News)
Did you
know?
the creeps
noun phrase
- a feeling of fear, repulsion, disgust
(Collins English Dictionary)
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Charles Dickens is credited with bringing the expression "the creeps" into the English language through his 1849 novel David Copperfield ("She was constantly complaining of the cold and of its occasioning a visitation in her back, which she called 'the creeps").
The word "creep" first appeared many centuries earlier however and was used in the sense of "crawling low on the ground." It stems from the Middle English "crepen" and Old English crēopan and is related to the Dutch kruipen and Old Norse krjūpa.
The evolution of "creep" to "creeps" likely derived from this use of "to move slowly with the body close to the ground, as a reptile or an insect, or a person on hands and knees." After all, many humans find things like snakes and spiders a bit scary. They can cause goose bumps, as if something is "creeping" on the skin. This is where the phrase "make one's flesh creep" comes from. The adjective "creepy" (disgusting, frightening) and the noun "creep" (an unpleasant, repulsive person) also originate from this sense.
An interesting synonym for "the creeps" is "horripilate." This is a 17th century, meanwhile archaic term that derives from the Latin verb "horrere" (to shudder or bristle in fear, connected to our "horror") plus "pilus," meaning hair.
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SYNONYMS
heebie-jeebies, dread, goose bumps, pins and needles, jitters, shivers, willies
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"She gets the creeps whenever she sees a spider."
noun phrase
- a feeling of fear, repulsion, disgust
(Collins English Dictionary)
---
Charles Dickens is credited with bringing the expression "the creeps" into the English language through his 1849 novel David Copperfield ("She was constantly complaining of the cold and of its occasioning a visitation in her back, which she called 'the creeps").
The word "creep" first appeared many centuries earlier however and was used in the sense of "crawling low on the ground." It stems from the Middle English "crepen" and Old English crēopan and is related to the Dutch kruipen and Old Norse krjūpa.
The evolution of "creep" to "creeps" likely derived from this use of "to move slowly with the body close to the ground, as a reptile or an insect, or a person on hands and knees." After all, many humans find things like snakes and spiders a bit scary. They can cause goose bumps, as if something is "creeping" on the skin. This is where the phrase "make one's flesh creep" comes from. The adjective "creepy" (disgusting, frightening) and the noun "creep" (an unpleasant, repulsive person) also originate from this sense.
An interesting synonym for "the creeps" is "horripilate." This is a 17th century, meanwhile archaic term that derives from the Latin verb "horrere" (to shudder or bristle in fear, connected to our "horror") plus "pilus," meaning hair.
---
SYNONYMS
heebie-jeebies, dread, goose bumps, pins and needles, jitters, shivers, willies
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"She gets the creeps whenever she sees a spider."
