Hickey

For other uses, see Hickey (disambiguation).

"Love bite" redirects here. For the film, see Love Bite.

Not to be confused with Kissing contusion, a type of knee injury.

Hickey
Other names	Kiss mark, love bite, bug bite, love mark
Hickeys on the neck
Pronunciation	/ˈhɪki/ HIK-ee
Specialty	Dermatology
Duration	3–14 days
Causes	suction on skin

A hickey, often referred to as a love bite in British English and specialised use, is a bruise or bruise-like mark caused by biting or sucking the skin of a person, usually on their neck, arm, or earlobe. While biting may be part of giving a hickey, sucking is sufficient to burst small superficial blood vessels under the skin to produce bruising. A hickey is sometimes used to mark someone as being the target of a partner's romantic affection or as belonging to them.

History

In a looser definition, the fourth-century Hindu text Kama Sutra contains references to biting with relation to kissing. "Love bite" as a term is first attested in 1749 in John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. The later term 'hickey', originally used in American English and still predominantly in that dialect, is of unclear etymology. Some sources suggests that it derives from the earlier meaning of "pimple, skin lesion" (c. 1915), itself perhaps a sense extension of "small gadget, device; any unspecified object" (1909).