Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The skin of a goose.
  • noun A kind of thin soft leather resembling the “chicken-skin” used for gloves in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
  • noun Same as goose-flesh.
  • noun The pitted surface exhibited by copal, caused by contact with the sand in which it is embedded.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Mindy kisses me behind the earlobe, creates cold, goose-skin magic, while Stacie floats to the CD player as though propelled by her own talismanic energy, as though her feet never touch the carpet.

    Now or Something Very Similar Jason Lee Miller 2011

  • So I went out one raw and rainy day, without clothes enough on my body to protect me from the weather; now shivering for excess of cold and now stumbling into the pools of rain-water, and altogether in so piteous a plight as would make one shudder with goose-skin to look upon.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Presently, seeing a wretched man, in a plight which made him shudder and feel goose-skin, and which would have moved the very rock to rush, he said to him, Ho thou!

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • When the maiden had thrown off the goose-skin and quickly put on her proper clothes, she came towards him and he saw that none had ever seen or told of such beauty as hers.

    The Grey Fairy Book 2003

  • I was shown two species of copal (gum anime) of which the best is said to come from the Mosul country up the Ambriz River: one bore the goose-skin of

    Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo 2003

  • And further, when by reason of heat or cold or some kindred affection a change is set up in the region of the heart, even in an imperceptibly small part of the heart, it produces a vast difference in the periphery of the body, — blushing, let us say, or turning white, goose-skin and shivers and their opposites.

    On the Motion of Animals 2002

  • And further, when by reason of heat or cold or some kindred affection a change is set up in the region of the heart, even in an imperceptibly small part of the heart, it produces a vast difference in the periphery of the body, — blushing, let us say, or turning white, goose-skin and shivers and their opposites.

    On the Motion of Animals 2002

  • If the soles of the feet be tickled, contraction of the toes, or involuntary laughter, will be excited, or perhaps only a shuddering and skin contraction, known as goose-skin.

    Complete Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism How to Hypnotize: Being an Exhaustive and Practical System of Method, Application, and Use A. Alpheus

  • He was continually on the watch for its symptoms; his legs were to swell to the size of an elephant's, and his skin was to be crumpled over like goose-skin.

    The Art of Letters Robert Lynd 1914

  • Before answering which one might have to consider what world, which life, and whether his skin were a goose-skin; but the Gray Goose's head would never have held all that.

    Children's Literature A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes Charles Madison Curry 1906

Comments

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  • The pitted surface exhibited by copal, caused by contact with the sand in which it is embedded. --Century Dictionary

    April 14, 2011