raise someone's hackles
"raise-someone-s-hackles" is a 20-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“raise someone's hackles” 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 annoy or anger someone.
Corpus desk
Index EN-raise-someone-s-hackles · raise someone's hackles · English
raise someone's hackles · 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 "R" 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 | raise someone's hackles |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 23 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “raise someone's hackles” in English
Rare enough to double-check
raise someone's hackles is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To annoy or anger someone.".
No misspelling variants are generated for raise someone's hackles in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is raise someone's hackles, spelled R-A-I-S-E- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E-'-S- -H-A-C-K-L-E-S.
Definition
- 1To annoy or anger someone.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how raise someone's hackles appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Every time I hear him talk, he just raises my hackles.
Much as I admire Wilson’s tour de force—I wish people would read it more and read about it less—my hackles have always risen at the entirely false suggestion that his book influenced mine.
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.