ˈgoose-skin
1. The skin of a goose.
| 1700 Floyer Cold Baths i. ii. 38 Excessive Cold, which contracts the Skin like a Goose-Skin. |
2. = goose-flesh 2.
| [1638 Rawley tr. Bacon's Life & Death 150 A Rugged Skin, such as they call a Goose Skin (orig. de cute spissiori, quam vocant anserinam), which is, as it were, Spongie.] 1785 J. Trusler Mod. Times III. 157 He draws back when they are addressing him, as if contamination was in their breath, and is all gooseskin at a low bred man. 1824 S. E. Ferrier Inher. ii, Her skin began to rise into what is vulgarly termed goose-skin. 1836 Lady Dacre in L'Estrange Friendships Miss Mitford (1882) I. 319 The learning she displays..gives me, what the poor people call the ‘goose-skin’—a sort of vague sensation of awe. 1872 Huxley Phys. xii. 279 ‘Horripilation’ or ‘goose-skin’. 1896 Allbutt's Syst. Med. I. 341 The skin is pale, and owing to the contraction of the unstriped muscle fibres, presents the appearance called ‘goose-skin’. |
3. A thin soft kind of leather. Also attrib.
| 1826 Morn. Herald in Hone Every-day Bk. (1859) II. 461 The ladies all wore a goose-skin underdress, in compliment to the north-easter. 1889 in Century Dict. |
4. The impression made upon copal by the sand or gravel in which it is found.
| 1859 R. F. Burton Centr. Afr. in Jrnl. Geog. Soc. XXIX. 437 The ‘goose-skin’, which is the impress of sand or gravel..To clear the goose-skin of dirt. |
Hence ˈgoose-skinned, ˈgoose-skinny adjs., affected with ‘goose-skin’.
| 1844 Dickens Chimes i, A breezy, goose-skinned, blue-nosed,..tooth-chattering place it was, to wait in. 1878 M. E. Herbert tr. Hübner's Ramble ii. ii. 258 It was the terrible revolver which had already made me feel goose-skinny on leaving Yokohama. |