give someone the creeps

present singular third person gives someone the creeps · participle present giving someone the creeps · past gave someone the creeps · participle past given someone the creeps

1. idiomaticTo give someone a feeling of uneasiness or mild fright.

   Walking through the graveyard late at night really gives me the creeps.

   3 more examples

   As for Leo, he did not altogether like it either, but ran his fingers through his yellow curls, and remarked that it gave him the creeps.

   1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, “‘Give Me a Black Goat!’”, in She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 216

   It’s the emptiness; there’s no one on the street at that time, along the river. It gives me the creeps.

   1997, Roddy Doyle, The Woman Who Walked into Doors

   Padilla added that while the tarantulas may give some the creeps, they munch on things that humans often consider pests, including cockroaches, beetles and other insects.

   2019 August 9, Dylan Miettinen, “Is that love in the air? Thousands of tarantulas to descend on southeast Colorado in search of mates”, in CNN

   Synonyms: creep someone out, give someone the heebie-jeebies, give someone the willies, spook someone, unnerve someone, give someone the collywobbles