make someone's toenails curl

A form of make someone's toes curl — To cause a strong emotional reaction, especially an unpleasant one.

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Meanings

verbmake someone's toenails curl (third-person singular simple present makes someone's toenails curl, present participle making someone's toenails curl, simple past and past participle made someone's toenails curl)

present singular third person makes someone's toenails curl · participle present making someone's toenails curl · participle past made someone's toenails curl · past made someone's toenails curl

  1. alternativeAlternative form of make someone's toes curl.

    A professor has written an academic analysis of the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon, finding that – despite containing “some of the worst writing I have ever seen and a plot that made my toenails curl”—the erotic novel “is less pornographic than it is a self-help book”.

    2014 May 27, Alison Flood, quoting Eva Illouz, “Fifty Shades of Grey is really a self-help book, says academic”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
Cite this entry
APA

make someone's toenails curl. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/make%20someone's%20toenails%20curl

MLA

“make someone's toenails curl.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/make%20someone's%20toenails%20curl. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “make someone's toenails curl,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/make%20someone's%20toenails%20curl.

Source: make someone's toenails curl on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.