bloodcurdling

bloodcurdling (comparative more bloodcurdling, superlative most bloodcurdling)

1. Causing great horror or terror.

   Out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, came a bloodcurdling scream.

   • 1900 April, L[yman] Frank Baum, “Introduction”, in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Ill., New York, N.Y.: Geo[rge] M. Hill Co., published 17 May 1900, →OCLC:

     Yet the old-time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as “historical” in the children’s library; for the time has come for a series of newer “wonder tales” in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and bloodcurdling incident devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale.

• bloodcurdlingly