Formication

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A tactile feeling of insects moving on or beneath the skin, often causing discomfort
2. The strange perception as if small bugs are creeping over or under the skin's surface
3. An unusual skin sensation resembling the presence of crawling bugs, typically without an actual source

Etymology: Ancient Romans had a word for ant, "formica," and the medical term "formication" grows directly out of it. The noun was formed around 1700 by adding the suffix "-tion" to that Latin stem, so the name for the sensation literally describes the feeling of ants crawling over the skin. The sensation was known to physicians long before English had a name for it, and the coinage gave doctors a way to describe a symptom that patients often reported in vague terms. The word's ant ancestry is what makes it striking. Nothing about the modern sensation requires insects; the name simply borrows the image of tiny creatures moving across the body. The same Latin root also gave English "formic," as in formic acid, which was first isolated from ants, so the insect link runs through several technical terms.

Synonyms: tingling, crawling sensation