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Hair stand on End

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Indicative of intense mental distress and astonishment. Dr. Andrews, of Beresford chapel, Walworth, who attended Probert under sentence of death, says: “When the executioner put the cords on his wrists, his hair, though long and lanky, of a weak iron-grey, rose gradually and stood perfectly upright, and so remained for some time, and then fell gradually down again.”

“Fear came upon me and trembling, … [and] the hair of my flesh stood up.”—Job iv. 14, 15.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Hair, Hairs
Hair-brained
Hair-breadth Scape
Hair Eels
Hair-Splitting
Hair Stane
Hair by Hair
Hair devoted to Proserpine
Hair of a Dissembling Colour
Hair of the Dog that Bit You (A)
Hair stand on End
Hake
Hal
Halacha [rule]
Halberjects or Haubergets
Halcyon Days
Half
Half
Half-baked
Half-deck
Half-done