What does "hair-curling" mean?

Exciting, astonishing, frightening, or horrifying.

What is a synonym for "hair-curling"?

Common synonyms include: buggish, buttock-clenching, dismayful, exciting, exhilarating, flaysome.

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Adjective

1
Exciting, astonishing, frightening, or horrifying. idiomatic
"But, first and foremost, "Retreat with Stilwell" is a rip snorting, spine tingling, hair curling story, and as such it is quite likely to hold you."

"But, first and foremost, "Retreat with Stilwell" is a rip snorting, spine tingling, hair curling story, and as such it is quite likely to hold you."

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.