ˈgoose-flesh, ˈgooseflesh
1. The flesh of a goose.
| c 1425 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 661 Caro aucina, goseflesche. c 1520 L. Andrewe Noble Lyfe ii. x. L j b in Babees Bk., The gose flessh is very grose of nature in disiestion. |
2. A rough, pimply condition of the skin, resembling that of a plucked goose, produced by cold, fear, etc.; horripilation. (
Cf. goose-skin 2.)
| ? 1810 Coleridge Lit. Rem. (1839) IV. 342 The very term by which the German New-Birthites express it is enough to give one goose-flesh. 1868 Browning Ring & Bk. viii. 282 This cold day!.. Guido must be all goose-flesh in his hole. 1876 Duhring Dis. Skin 29 The condition known as cutis anserina, or goose-flesh. 1880 Browning Clive 192 The memory of that moment makes goose-flesh rise! |
| fig. 1864 Lowell Study Wind. (1886) 123 Irritating every pore of his vanity, like a dry north-east wind, to a gooseflesh of opposition and hostility. |
| attrib. and Comb. 1851 Thackeray in Scribner's Mag. II. 134/2 The Exhibition..was..a great love-inspiring, gooseflesh-bringing sight. 1859 O. W. Holmes Prof. Breakf.-t. xi, Such a ‘gooseflesh’ shiver ran over my skin. |
Hence
ˈgoosefleshy a., of or pertaining to ‘gooseflesh’; exhibiting ‘gooseflesh’; (
nonce-wds.)
ˈgooseflesh v. intr., to experience ‘gooseflesh’;
ˈgoose-fleshed ppl. a. = goosefleshy adj.;
ˈgoosefleshing ppl. a., giving one ‘gooseflesh’.
| 1894 G. S. Layard Tennyson & Illustrators ii. 16 The true goose-fleshy appearance that would be lost in the warmth of the studio. 1895 Clark Russell Convict Ship II. xxvi. 159 ‘It's a goosefleshing discipline’, said Captain Barrett. 1904 Daily Chron. 2 Aug. 7/1 In the life of every married man comes a moment when, with a goose-fleshy shudder, he realises that the face opposite to him at the breakfast-table is the face that will always be there. 1924 L. Abercrombie Theory of Poetry i. 18, I gooseflesh one day, but another day I do not, at the same passage. 1932 Kipling Limits & Renewals 47 A Fear leaped out of the goose-fleshed streets of London between the icy shop⁓fronts. 1934 A. Christie Murder on Orient Express i. vi. 59 This is where I'm supposed to go all goose-fleshy down the back. 1955 Times 13 July 10/5 Bathing under regularly warm skies spoils anyone, who is not a keen swimmer, for the chilly dips in and out, with the skin blue and goose-fleshy, which the hardy English will take. 1971 O. Norton Corpse-Bird Cries iv. 80 There was a lot of stuff about whether her skin was goose-fleshy or not. |