A shudder or sudden thrill; a sensation of excitement or fear running through the body.
From French frisson, derived from Latin frigere (to be cold), with the sense evolving from a physical shiver to an emotional thrill. The French term was adopted into English to describe that delicious spine-tingling sensation.
Frisson is one of the few French words that's precisely untranslatable—English has 'shiver' and 'thrill,' but frisson captures that exact goosebump moment when music or beauty moves you. Some languages have the perfect word for a feeling that requires a whole sentence to explain!
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