give someone the creeps
"give-someone-the-creeps" is a 20-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“give someone the creeps” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 23
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To give someone a feeling of uneasiness or mild fright.
Corpus desk
Index EN-give-someone-the-creeps · give someone the creeps · English
give someone the creeps · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 23 letters
- VOW-9 9 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "G" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | give someone the creeps |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 23 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “give someone the creeps” in English
Rare enough to double-check
give someone the creeps is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To give someone a feeling of uneasiness or mild fright.".
No misspelling variants are generated for give someone the creeps in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is give someone the creeps, spelled G-I-V-E- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E- -T-H-E- -C-R-E-E-P-S.
Definition
- 1To give someone a feeling of uneasiness or mild fright.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how give someone the creeps appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Walking through the graveyard late at night really gives me the creeps.
As for Leo, he did not altogether like it either, but ran his fingers through his yellow curls, and remarked that it gave him the creeps.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.