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.

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.^{[citation needed]} 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. Many therapists see hickeys as a form of light sadomasochism.^[1]

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

History

In a looser definition, the fourth-century Hindu text Kama Sutra contains references to biting with relation to kissing.^[2] "Love bite" as a term is first attested in 1749 in John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.^[3] The later term 'hickey', originally used in American English and still predominantly in that dialect, is of unclear etymology.^[4] 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).^[5]