TICKLE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Tickle

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/tˈɪkəl/ Listen

verb

Tickle v. t. (past & past part. tickled; pres. part. tickling)

To touch lightly, so as to produce a peculiar thrilling sensation, which commonly causes laughter, and a kind of spasm which become dengerous if too long protracted. "If you tickle us, do we not laugh?"

To please; to gratify; to make joyous. "Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw." "Such a nature Tickled with good success, disdains the shadow Which he treads on at noon."

Tickle v. i.

To feel titillation. "He with secret joy therefore Did tickle inwardly in every vein."

To excite the sensation of titillation.

adjective

Tickle adj.

Ticklish; easily tickled. (Obs.)

Liable to change; uncertain; inconstant. (Obs.) "The world is now full tickle, sikerly." "So tickle is the state of earthy things."

Wavering, or liable to waver and fall at the slightest touch; unstable; easily overthrown. (Obs.) "Thy head stands so tickle on thy shoulders, that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off."

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Etymology of 'Tickle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tickle" Quotes from Famous Books

... whole company hereupon show the greatest interest; while the priest holding Moa Artua to his ear interprets to them what he pretends the god is confidentially communicating to him. Some items intelligence appear to tickle all present amazingly; for one claps his hands in a rapture; another shouts with merriment; and a third leaps to his feet and capers about ...

— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... and Maine are given to the French; Paris is lost; the state of Normandy Stands on a tickle point now they are gone. Suffolk concluded on the articles, The peers agreed; and Henry was well pleas'd To changes two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter. I cannot blame them all: what is't to them? ...

— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... Versa;" but, as George Eliot says, nothing is such a strain on the affections as a difference of taste in jokes. It is unsafe to recommend any writer as very funny. No man can ever tell how his neighbour will take a joke. But it may safely be said that authors who really tickle their students are extremely rare in England, except as writers for the stage, and surely "The Great Pink Pearl" might have made Timon of Athens shake his sides, or might convert a Veddah to the belief that "there is something to laugh at." In literature, ...

— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... to him. Formerly, when delegates from other cities wanted to deceive you, they had but to style you, "the people crowned with violets," and at the word "violets" you at once sat erect on the tips of your bums. Or if, to tickle your vanity, someone spoke of "rich and sleek Athens," in return for that "sleekness" he would get all, because he spoke of you as he would have of anchovies in oil. In cautioning you against such wiles, the poet has done you great service as well as in forcing you to understand ...

— The Acharnians • Aristophanes

... nations are wonderfully gracious and friendly, their ministers professing the highest mutual regard, exchanging billets-doux, making fine speeches, and indulging in all those little diplomatic flirtations, coquetries, and fondlings, that do so marvelously tickle the good humor of the respective nations. Thus it may paradoxically be said, that there is never so good an understanding between two nations as when there is a little misunderstanding—and that so long as they are on terms at all they are on the ...

— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

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