The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Gooseflesh

a change in the skin manifested by the appearance of tiny nodules, so that the skin resembles that of a plucked goose.

Gooseflesh is caused by cold and mental agitation (for example, fear), which result in the contraction of the minute muscles that raise the hair. Gooseflesh can be a form of keratosis, lichen pilaris, a developmental anomaly of the hair bulbs, or vitamin A deficiency. It appears in children from the ages of two to five mostly on the extensor surfaces of the limbs, intensifies at puberty, and smooths out after a number of years. Treatment of the condition involves softening and removal of the horny layers and a diet rich in vitamin A, or administration of a preparation containing the vitamin.

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References in periodicals archive

Shortly after midnight, a mighty ghost appeared and spoke to him in a thunderous voice, sending chills and gooseflesh up his spine.

The hunt for Bin-Laden series (1:3): Ghost-Haibun

Sweating, blushing, gooseflesh, and temperature alterations during various emotional states are signs that our mind affects this organ system.

Dermatology and the psyche

Judging by the areas of blue gooseflesh on display outside the clubs we can expect an epidemic.

Mother knows best

Done in by lust and then undone by love, insurance agent Walter Huff masterminds the perfect murder of his lover's husband and then helps it go awry in this classic noir thriller with more twists and turns than a rat's maze and an ending that will give listeners gooseflesh. Cain's world is a bleak one of fuzzy values and situational ethics, where nobody is quite what he seems and where love is anything but happy and redemptive.

Double Indemnity

My husband woke me up with this horrible news and I broke out in gooseflesh because on July 23, my family and I were rafting and tubing and I got caught on these exact same logs and flipped off of my tube.

LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG

Humbert acknowledges the futility of his repetition compulsion as "the rational pursuit of a purely theoretical thrill," and indeed "Lo was all gooseflesh and grit, and for the first time in my life I had as little desire for her as for a manatee" (167).

Searching high and Lo: unholy quests for Lolita

This denunciation of Machek has recalled to some of Subasich's friends, with a touch of gooseflesh, that it was Subasich who had directly in hand the measures (much exaggerated, according to Subasich's friends) which are now described by Djilas.

OSS 1944 report on foreign nationality groups in the United States

Chapter Two, "Glands, Gooseflesh, and Hormones," reviews the hormones and brain system involved in the stress-response: which ones are activated during stress and which ones are inhibited.

Annotated bibliography on musician wellness

Never will I forget my reaction to that sight: it chilled me to the marrow, raising gooseflesh that still at times is raised again at the very thought of what I saw.

The painting that became an oral history

(6) The phrases "kicking the habit" and "going cold turkey" describe the leg spasms and gooseflesh skin of opiate withdrawal.

Radiologic aspects of street drug abuse. (Directed Reading)

Kathy was tugging at his elbow, the cold air already raising gooseflesh on her bare forearms, and he turned to go inland.

Estuary (Part I)

In Naked Portrait with Green Chair, it's as if the stillwet paint representing the areas around the woman's left knee and the inside of her right thigh had been smooshed up against the formalists' mythical picture plane as against a pane of glass, then pulled back to make the paint stand up like gooseflesh.

LUCIAN FREUD