horripilating
/hɒˌɹɪpɪˈleɪtɪŋ/
"horripilating" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“horripilating” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Causing horripilation.
Corpus desk
Index EN-horripilating · horripilating · English
horripilating · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "H" 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 | horripilating |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /hɒˌɹɪpɪˈleɪtɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “horripilating” in English
Rare enough to double-check
horripilating is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /hɒˌɹɪpɪˈleɪtɪŋ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
horripilating has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From horripilate + -ing. The correct English form is horripilating, spelled H-O-R-R-I-P-I-L-A-T-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Causing horripilation.
- 2Horrendous, horrifying, terrifying.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how horripilating appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I was sadly shocked, however, when he said he could prove that God hates the truth; the effect was horripilating.
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 can jauntily stagger under in the broad light of day, […]…
Etymology
From horripilate + -ing.
Synonyms
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.