Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Designating the muscles, and the nerves innervating them, which are attached to the hair-follicles: their contraction causes the condition called ‘goose-flesh.’
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Relating to the
goose flesh reflex .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
pilo- + motor
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Examples
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The pilomotor fibers to the hairs and the motor fibers to the sweat glands apparently have a distribution similar to that of the vasoconstrictors of the skin.
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Among other delights, there's a switch that retreats into its enclosure when your finger approaches, a switch that extrudes a stream of snotty goo when pressed (and retracts it when released), and (my personal favorite) a hairy switch with a pilomotor reflex that makes the hairs stand up when you try to touch it.
MAKE Magazine 2010
hernesheir commented on the word pilomotor
Without pilomotor muscles and nerves, there would be neither goose-flesh, nor goosebumps, nor nary a goose pimple.
June 23, 2011