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Tease   /tiz/   Listen
Tease

verb
(past & past part. teased; pres. part. teasing)
1.
Annoy persistently.  Synonyms: badger, beleaguer, bug, pester.
2.
Harass with persistent criticism or carping.  Synonyms: bait, cod, rag, rally, razz, ride, tantalise, tantalize, taunt, twit.  "Don't ride me so hard over my failure" , "His fellow workers razzed him when he wore a jacket and tie"
3.
To arouse hope, desire, or curiosity without satisfying them.  "She has a way of teasing men with her flirtatious behavior"
4.
Tear into pieces.
5.
Raise the nap of (fabrics).
6.
Disentangle and raise the fibers of.  Synonyms: loosen, tease apart.
7.
Separate the fibers of.  Synonym: card.
8.
Mock or make fun of playfully.
9.
Ruffle (one's hair) by combing the ends towards the scalp, for a full effect.  Synonym: fluff.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tease" Quotes from Famous Books



... at all events. I'm no more Bannon's daughter than you're his son. Our names sound alike—people frequently make the same mistake. My name is Shannon—Lucy Shannon. Mr. Bannon called me Lucia because he knew I didn't like it, to tease me; for the same reason he always kept up the pretence that I was his daughter when ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... workshop. He pressed every one with questions as to all matters, great or small, with which the interlocutor was likely to be familiar.[158] Horace Walpole met him at "dull Holbach's," and the abbe at once began to tease him across the table as to the English colonies. Walpole knew as little about them as he knew about Coptic, so he made signs to his tormentor that he was deaf. On another occasion Raynal dined at Strawberry Hill, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... "Don't tease the boy, Winny dear," said the little gentle mother; then she turned her kind, interested eyes on him, and waited ...
— Three People • Pansy

... talk to her behind the scenes,' said Bob knowingly. 'Shall we go too, and tease him for ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... for our entertainment in the house. In this we were mistaken; for, after a long time, she returned and handed us, through the fence, some cold corn-bread and bacon. This and similar experiences by others gave us ample means to tease Macon about the grand things we were to see ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... heard of his marrying was all nonsense, I can assure you. I knew him well, and he had no thoughts of the kind about him. Some of the boys used to tease him about it, but ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... progressing nicely." But under this item is a long poem clipped from a paper printed a week later,—Jeanette has counted the stanzas many times and knows there are seventeen, and each one ends with "when the angels brought Jeanette." Her father used to read the verses to her to tease her when she was in her teens, and once when she was in her twenties, and Jeanette had the lonely poet out to dinner one Sunday, she sat with him on the sofa in the library, looking at the old scrap-book. Their eyes fell upon the verses about the angels bringing Jeanette, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... one can be pleased with me, I am dark and dull to see; Those whom money troubles tease Hate me, for ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... Gypsy had never had a sister, and her brothers were neither of them near enough to her own age to interfere very much with her wishes and privileges. Moreover, a brother, though he may be the greatest tease in existence, is apt to be easier to get along with than a sister about one's own age. His pleasures and ambitions run in different directions from the girls; there is less clashing of interests. Besides this, Gypsy's playmates in Yorkbury, as has been said, had not chanced to be girls of very ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... the name. When he began to go to school the other boys used to laugh at him when he stood up and told the teacher what his name was, and, a tease among the girls, who had an old grandmother who used to sit in a corner and read old books, once nick-named the youth "Rise and Progress." As soon as he could write, he always signed his name D. W. Weaver, and insisted that the initials ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... childish fears, in a sound sleep which remained unbroken till the morning sun was shining brightly above the trees. But it was long before I heard the last of the night I spent in the bush; and as often as my brothers wished to tease me, they would enquire if I had lately heard the cries of a catamount? Time passed on till I grew up, and leaving the paternal home went forth to make my own way in the world. Old Rufus still resided in R. When a child I used ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... safari scattered by rhinoceroses in the former district, while in the latter the boys were up trees six times in the course of one morning! Carl Akeley, with a moving picture machine, could not tease a charge out of a rhino in a dozen tries, while Dugmore, in a different part of the country, was so chivied about that he finally left the district to avoid killing any more ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... could refuse him, that he always makes me angry, and I can't help it. But you shall go to the picnic, dear, whether he takes you or not; there will be plenty glad to ask you; so kiss me, Dimpey, and I won't tease you again.' ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... reproach that I did not come into her company often enough; was it a playful invitation to do so oftener; or was it the woman's primal instinct, old as Eve in the Garden of Eden, just to tease the man? I scarcely asked myself those questions. They ran through my mind with the kind of physical impulse which you feel in the presence of the possible woman. You are aware, then, of feelings and shadows of feeling which cannot ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne

... rather crest-fallen, as she presented herself before her Scotch husband, who laughed heartily over her misadventure, and did not cease to tease her about her expedition to the mountain, as long as they remained ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... brief colloquy had reached Tom Verity; and one word at least possessed an Elizabethan flavour forbidden to ears Victorian, feminine and polite. Noting it Tom reddened and glanced uneasily at his companion, all inclination to tease giving place to a laudable desire to shield her from annoyance. But Damaris, judging by her demeanour, was unaware of any cause of offence; whence, with relief he concluded that either she had not heard, or that the rank expression conveyed ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... although we sneer In health—when ill, we call them to attend us, Without the least propensity to jeer; While that "hiatus maxime deflendus" To be filled up by spade or mattock's near, Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe, We tease mild Baillie,[545] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... to think so. I did not wish them to believe we had been drowned and have the entire lakeside out looking for us. That wouldn't be fun. It is more fun to tease and tantalize them." ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge

... See how all things pass away! Poor fellow, ten years ago he was the flower of dandyism; and now, so thoroughly absorbed that you no more know him than Finot just now knew the origin of the expression 'coup de Jarnac'—I repeat that simply for the sake of illustration, and not to tease you, Finot. Well, it is a fact, he belonged to the ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... children essayed to tease her; she seemed quite unconscious of their efforts, but I turned and spoke to them rather sharply. The next time I looked up, her strange, smiling eyes were fixed full on my face. I glanced away quickly, with a nervous shiver, ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... "Don't tease, Marj," she admonished. "And don't get mad about nothing, Dotty—I mean Dot," she corrected quickly, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... are saying so to tease me' said Phoebe; 'but as I know you don't mean it, I shall wait till after the party; and then, unless you have had it out with him, I shall tell ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... had no dowry. Why do you tease me with that? No, everything I have I will sell or pawn. The pearls, my gold ornaments, I will take off of my katiba. The gold buttons can be melted. My brooch and my necklace, with twelve strings of pearls, I will also sell; and, if it is necessary, even the gold pins from my velvet cap ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous

... from Maine to Michigan, and that such trivial geographical differences as exist between the different sections seem scarcely worth consideration when compared with the vast spaces which lie beyond toward the setting sun. But perhaps Dr. Hope was only trying to tease her, for he twinkled amusedly at her puzzled face ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... what sort of place ours was, it all went off by degrees; for three years I have never seen the smallest sign of temper, and if she is well treated there is not a better, more willing animal than she is. But she is naturally a more irritable constitution than the black horse; flies tease her more; anything wrong in the harness frets her more; and if she were ill-used or unfairly treated she would not be unlikely to give tit for tat. You know that many high-mettled ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell

... a dwelling in which friendly spirits of household life and of settled agricultural pursuits had taken up their abode. Nothing can better show the anxiety of life in those primitive times, especially in a country like Italy, full of forest and mountain, where dwelt mischievous Brownies who would tease the settler if they could. But on the ninth day after the birth (or the eighth in the case of a girl) the child was "purified" and adopted into the family and its sacra, and into the gens to which the family belonged, and received its name—the latter a matter of ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... did not hear. (long wait) Nobody ever heard. (after it seems she is held there, and will not go on) I used to talk as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my talking. But they'd come in to talk to me. They'd say—'You may hear yet.' They'd talk about what must have happened. And one day a woman who'd been my friend all my life said—'Suppose he was to walk in!' I ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell

... tones at what he chose to suppose an insult, that Leyden threatened to "thraw his neck" if he were not silent, a threat which frightened Ritson out of the cottage. On another occasion, simply in order to tease Ritson, Leyden complained that the meat was overdone, and sent to the kitchen for a plate of literally raw beef, and ate it up solely for the purpose of shocking his crazy rival in antiquarian research. Poor Leyden did not long survive ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... good spirits, was inclined to tease him, "I should have thought it would be a capital opportunity to show an intelligent foreigner the sights ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... baking day at Willie Wright's house. Willie was on hand, as usual, to scrape the dish and tease for raisins. ...
— The Goody-Naughty Book • Sarah Cory Rippey

... on the horizon, and, except for its innate strength, an almost expressionless face. Meryl was a little amused. She realised thoroughly that the situation was none of his seeking, and she was in two minds whether to give him expressionless rigidity in return, or purposely tease him with questions. At first she chose silence, and looked around her with eyes of growing tenderness ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... on them, if they did. I wonder what they'd think of Hampton, if they could see it now. I counted up once, just to tease father—he's the seventh generation from Ebenezer Bumpus, who came to Dolton. Well, I proved to him he might have one hundred and twenty-six other ancestors besides ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... who was a great tease, "I only touched Lena's arm to let her know the 'scare' part ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks

... can you? I sometimes think you say such things expressly to tease me; and yet I should think you of all women would understand my purpose in writing such a book. It has always seemed to me that the message I had to deliver was not for myself alone, but for all the other women in the world who have felt the hollowness ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... this trick got Pedro and the bear all the soda water and small drinks that they cared for at the country stores and hotels. Occasionally Pedro would push the cork in very tight to tease the performer, who would sometimes growl and box the bottle with his paw, to the great ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... Laura. "The boy are too much in earnest. It isn't fair to tease them, now. Wait until they've been at West Point and Annapolis a couple of years. Then ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock

... were those fair evenings spent,—the evenings of happy June! And then, as Maltravers suffered the children to tease him into talk about the wonders he had seen in the regions far away, how did the soft and social hues of his character unfold themselves! There is in all real genius so much latent playfulness of nature it almost seems as if genius never could grow old. The inscriptions that ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... have a joke on me, and they tease all the time. I said Aunt Jane's poll parrot just once. That was enough! They pretend now that there is such a bird and that I keep him hidden in my room. They ask after his health morning, noon and night, and ask me quite seriously ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill

... 'Don't tease your uncle with questions when he is thinking only for our good, my love,' said Mrs Nickleby. 'Nicholas, my dear, I ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... and it was very dusty—and under it we found my threepenny-bit that I lost ages ago, which shows what Eliza is. H. O. had got tired of being the wounded hero, and Dicky was so tired of doing nothing that Dora said she knew he'd begin to tease Noel in a minute; then of course Dicky said he wasn't going to tease anybody—he was going out to the Heath. He said he'd heard that nagging women drove a man from his home, and now he found it was quite true. Oswald ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit

... father's. She actually had the good fortune, while Miss Minnie Senior, to stop at the Combe Florey Rectory, and to discover that the eminent wit took as much trouble to amuse his own family when alone as to set the tables of Mayfair upon a roar. He liked to tease his girl guest by telling her that her father, then a Master in Chancery, did not care a straw for his daughter "Minnie." "De Minimis non curat Lex"—"the Master does not care for Minnie"—was a favourite ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... other gardens. On one side was the garden of a jovial master-joiner who loved to tease me. Even now I cannot understand how he could take his own life, as he did, later on. Once when I was a very little boy I had said to him over the hedge, with a precociously knowing look: "Neighbor, it is very cold!" and he never grew weary of repeating this ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... knows better than that, and simply likes to tease. I believe that women should have the same rights as men, in their proper sphere; and I would like to see them have a right to vote on this temperance question, for if they had they would soon sweep the land clear of its most blighting curse; but except for ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... specimen of Philip's wooing. Confound the girl, he would say to himself, why does she never tease Harry and that young Shepley who ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... days. It seems strange that such a very practical nation should have made such a foolish law, but so it was; and on this occasion it once more led, as it was bound to do, to an utter defeat. Hannibal played his usual game of sending Numidians across the river to insult and tease his enemy, till at length Varro exclaimed in wrath that the next day the command would be his, and that he would give the Carthaginians battle and teach them something of the majesty ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... tease!" cried Genevieve, dancing up and down with impatience, and trying to pluck the papers from ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... said, without the faintest hesitation or shyness, 'we always thought you hated girls. I know I used to tease you when you came home for the first time, when you used to think of nothing but the ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... wanted to talk to a man. It's too bad! Simply because you asked me to, I was silly enough to tease Vievie into coming over this afternoon—and the minute he comes, she rushes him ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... shade redder in its mortification even while she knew that the man was lying to tease her. Then she sat back with a little gasp and even slow moving Kootanie George turned quickly as a heavy voice called from ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... of them were in some way distinguished for valor. War, it seems, fattens upon the tenderest of foods, and every army has its boys—its wondrous, well-beloved infants, whom their older comrades tease, torment, and idolize. Impetuous, drunk with youth, and keeping no company with care, they form the very aristocracy of fighting forces. They gaily undertake the maddest of adventures; and by their examples they fire ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... lower world by being placed in a lake of pure water up to his chin, while there hung over him luscious fruit, the fruit and the water receding whenever he sought to satisfy his hunger or thirst. Hence tantalize means to tease or torment by presenting something desirable to the view and frustrating expectation by ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins

... mystery. At one moment there was the solid wall; the next, without touch of human hands, a door would fly open, giving a tantalizing glimpse of things to eat which he could never touch, for if he came near, the door would close again as mysteriously as it had opened. Dan loved to tease him with it, and Zeb, fearing magic, would take to his ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... placed for a short time in the society of the children of his owner in this country, not only throve in an extraordinary manner, was perfectly docile and good-tempered, but learnt to imitate them. When the eldest little boy wished to tease his playfellow, he used, childlike, to make faces at him. Chim soon outdid him, and one of the funniest things imaginable was to see him blown at and blowing in return; his protrusible lips converted themselves into a trumpet-shaped instrument, which reminded one immediately ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... about. "You men are all alike," she cried, interrupting. "You tease and worry and torture a girl you pretend to care for, till 't is past endurance. I hate you, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... well. O'er all his veins the wandering passion burns, He calls her nymph, and every nymph by turns. 160 Her form to lovely Venus he prefers, Or swears that Venus must be such as hers. She, proud to rule, yet strangely framed to tease, Neglects his offers while her airs she plays, Shoots scornful glances from the bended frown, In brisk disorder trips it up and down, Then hums a careless tune to lay the storm, And sits and blushes, smiles, and yields ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... ready, and ordered Abdoollah to set on the pot for the broth; but while she was preparing it, the lamp went out, and there was no more oil in the house, nor any candles. What to do she did not know, for the broth must be made. Abdoollah seeing her very uneasy, said: "Do not fret and tease yourself, but go into the yard, and take some oil out of one of the jars." Morgiana thanked Abdoollah for his advice, took the oil-pot, and went into the yard; when as she came nigh the first jar, the robber within said softly: "Is it time?" Though the ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... in it. In her letter she refers to Minister Phelps by the rather disrespectful nickname of "Yaas," a term conferred because of his pronunciation of that affirmative. The Clemens children were not entirely happy in the company of the minister. They were fond of him, but he was a great tease. They were quite young enough, but it seemed always to give him delight to make them appear much younger. In the letter above ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... but as for my Rose, I should say to you, 'If it had only pleased Providence to make your gallant son a brave cooper, there would be no more welcome son-in-law on earth than he; but now'—— But, my dear good sir, why do you tease and worry me with such curious questions? See you, our merry talk has come abruptly to an end, and look! our glasses are all standing full. Let's put all sons-in-law and Rose's marriage aside; here, I pledge you ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... as men often do when their women take to thinking on their own lines. Usually the heedless man dismisses the matter with but small respect, but Peter was not that kind. All his life he had depended upon his sister's "vision" as he called it. He might laugh and tease her, but he never took a definite step ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... concealed it purposely in hopes of recovering their ring, rise up out of the water, and swimming gracefully around promise to help him recover his game if he will only give them his ring. Siegfried, who attaches no value whatever to the trinket, but wishes to tease them, refuses it at first; but when they change their bantering into a prophetic tone and try to frighten him by telling him the ring will prove his bane unless he intrust it to their care, he proudly answers that he has never yet learned ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber

... footman—one is quite enough,—or a coachman, or a carriage;—besides, I would always rather ride than drive,—and my groom, Bennett, will only want a stable-boy to help him with Cleo and Daffodil. So I hope there'll be no one downstairs to tease you, Spruce dear, by tickling YOUR nose with a straw! Primmins looks much too staid and respectable to think of such ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... veil which, in your princely extravagance, you sent for from London: resolved, I suppose, since I would not have jewels, to cheat me into accepting something as costly. I smiled as I unfolded it, and devised how I would tease you about your aristocratic tastes, and your efforts to masque your plebeian bride in the attributes of a peeress. I thought how I would carry down to you the square of unembroidered blond I had myself prepared as a covering for my low-born ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... "Oh don't tease her," said little Elsie. "Perhaps she has a headache, and I know by myself that that makes one feel dull, and ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... not exactly cruelty. The child that tears the fly to pieces does not represent to himself the sufferings the insect undergoes; he merely yields to an impulse to disintegrate. So children, even ordinarily good children, are ready to tease any child who simply looks teasable, and so provokes the act. Now the Bruces were not good children, as was natural; and they despised Annie because she was a girl, and because she had no self-assertion. If she had shown herself aggressively disagreeable, they would have made some attempt to ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... cat!" Frisky said to himself. "I promised Mr. Crow I wouldn't hurt her; but I didn't promise him that I wouldn't tease her." So he bobbed up and down ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... we mustn't do the thing by halves," concluded Patsy; "so our darling little brigandess must tease her papa to let her stay with us ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... knew perfectly well that Nino had only asked for the extra lesson in order to get a chance of talking about the Contessina di Lira, and so, to tease him, as soon as he appeared, the maestro made a great bustle about singing scales, and insisted on beginning at once. Moreover, he pretended to be in a bad humour; and that is always pretence ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... tease you this morning," she answered, docilely. "I like the horse too well—and, to be frank, I ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... animated her countenance. I tarried as long as decency would admit. She having intimated that they were to dine at my friend Lawrence's, I caught at this information, and determined to follow them, and tease the jealous Mrs. Richman by playing off all the gallantry I was master of ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster

... said: "What fun To make that Porcupine girl run; Girls for boys to tease were meant."— But ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood

... do not tease him; but your brother is very fond of teasing animals, and so he gets punished and frightened. It is very wrong of him to do so, especially as he is told by his father and me that he ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat

... and was in my big catalpa talking to Billy Stevens, who was going to be her beau as soon as mother said she was old enough. Father was reading a wonderful new book to mother and some of the neighbours. Leon was perfectly happy because no one wanted him, so he could tease all of them by saying things they didn't like to hear. When Laddie came out and mounted, Leon asked him where he was going, and Laddie said he hadn't fully decided: he might ride to Elizabeth's, and not come back ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... Don't tease the children so!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown. "And what are we going to do with Wango?" she asked, for the monkey seemed quite contented now that he was in a warm, light room with his two special friends, Bunny ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... so inclined to tease him?" mused Jane, as she moved, from the window. "Really it is I who have been silly this time; and he, staid and sensible. Myra is quite right. He is taking it very seriously. And how about her? Ah! I hope she cares enough, and in the right way.—Come in, Matthews! ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... the house in search of his wife, and Elsie began to tease her unfortunate victim, a pastime of which she never wearied. It seemed to her the funniest thing in the world to make that great creature blush and stammer, to lead him on to the perpetration of absurd things, to laugh at him, to bewilder his honest head; for any pain he might suffer, ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... harm to come to Johnny Chuck, but he wanted to make Johnny uncomfortable. That is Sammy Jay's idea of fun—seeing somebody else uncomfortable. So he slipped away to a thick hemlock-tree in the Green Forest to try to think of some plan to tease Johnny Chuck ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess

... friend, whom I esteemed almost as many years as you—poor Fenton. He died at Easthampstead, of indolence and inactivity; let it not be your fate, but use exercise. I hope the Duchess [of Queensberry] will take care of you in this respect, and either make you gallop after her, or tease you enough at home to serve ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... at feasts, and high solemnities, Where most may wonder at the workmanship. It is for homely features to keep home; They had their name thence: coarse complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply The sampler, and to tease the huswife's wool. What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that, Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn? There was another meaning in these gifts; Think what, and be advised; you are but young yet. LADY. I had not thought to have unlocked my lips In this unhallowed air, ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton

... "No indeed! They'd tease us to death about it. I don't know where we'll go," she added, for she was getting rather cross. "I wish we'd left the old cat in the cellar anyway; it was a silly plan ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller

... over to see her by and by, he said, and he pictured to himself how she must look by this time, hoping that he should not find her greatly changed, for Morris Grant's memories were very precious of the playful child who, in that very room where he was sitting, used to tease and worry him so much with her lessons poorly learned, and the never-ending jokes played off upon her teacher. He had thought of her so often when across the sea, and, knowing her love of the beautiful, he had never looked upon a painting or scene of rare beauty that he did not ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... a great tease, pretended to think for quite a long time, until his silence had driven the children nearly desperate. "Yes," he then said, "I should, mum, provided you let me find a trustworthy man to go on with the garden. Otherwise I shouldn't dare to face Mrs. Collins when ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas

... tease you for the world. But look here, I want you to think better of what you said—about carrying the tale to Mr. West. There's an awful lot done by passing things over; you don't know! Let's return these articles—see, it's ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe

... going!" exclaimed Eugenia, in surprise. "Whether papa wants me to or not! I shall answer Cousin Elizabeth's letter this very minute and accept the invitation before he comes home. Then if he makes a fuss it will be too late, and I can tease ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston

... I do. And I shall always like you: if you don't tease me, and urge me too much. It is hardly fair to hurry me so; I am only a girl, and girls ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... irresolutely at the conjurer, but repressed the desire to learn more of the future, fearing her father's laughter. She knew that, when Lysander was well and free from pain, nothing pleased him so much as to tease ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... believe he would keep his word, but he did at first, and he tried not to tease her in any way. He tried to please her in the whims and fancies she had about going this way or that, and when she decided not to look up his young maples with him, because the first autumn leaves ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells

... wonderful conventional tact, they are so intimately allied with each other, or they have such keen desires for emotion, that they always know how to break the ice on such occasions. Suddenly, as if the two beauties had the same thought, they began to tease their solitary knight in a playful way, and were soon vying with each other in the jesting attention which they paid to him; this unanimity of action left them free. At the end of half an hour, the two ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... oppressed by some fantastic woes, Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose; Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance With timid eye to read the distant glance; Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease To name the nameless, ever-new, disease; Who with mock patience dire complaints endure, Which real pain, and that alone, can cure; How would ye bear in real pain to lie, Despised, neglected, left alone to die? How would, ye bear ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... group, as they went to the twin's and Olive's rooms, without finding any trace, and then returned to the sitting-room. Bea half hoped and expected that they would find Ernestine sitting by the fire, full of laugh, and ready to tease them on their fright and search; but she was disappointed, for the room was dreary and lonely, the light wood fire having died of neglect; and everything looked unutterably forlorn to their anxious eyes. In an ominous silence all four ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... same place "when boys are wont to tease," in order that he might heighten their passionate temper by being stirred up by children. Of a continuous sound, he says ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... came back from school he was much more comfortable than he had been since he had left the old woman's cottage. They were kind little children, and wanted to play with him; but, alas! the poor fellow had never played in his life, and thought they wanted to tease him, and flew straight into the milk-pan, and then into the butter-dish, and from that into the meal- barrel, and at last, terrified at the noise and confusion, right out of the door, and hid himself in the snow amongst the bushes at the back of ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... into the flooded field to catch the fishes as they escape from the overflowing ponds; the rain water is running in rills through the narrow lanes like a laughing boy who has run away from his mother to tease her. ...
— The Crescent Moon • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)

... become me, therefore I will not say that I consider myself unworthy of such an alliance; but if the Marquis de l'Estang should ask my hand of my father, I would refuse him. I have told you, my dear brother, more than once, that I do not wish to marry—and you know it too—so pray don't tease ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... you acting that will make your hair stand on end, and you shall act too. Bab will be capital for the naughty girls," began Thorny, excited by the prospect of producing a sensation on the boards, and always ready to tease the girls. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... than childish joy showing in her face, an older person would have seen that, but it was largely lost on Rolf. There was a tendency to blush when she laughed, a disposition to tease her "big brother," to tyrannize over ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... look upon eating and drinking as a necessity, sometimes too much so, so that it has never entered my head to take pleasure and delight in it. And so we took no notice of each other. Only once, in order to tease me, my colleagues made her believe that I wanted some of her cakes. She stepped up to my desk and held her basket out to me. 'I don't want anything, my dear young woman,' I said. 'Well, why do you send for me then?' she cried angrily. I excused ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... and by describing what I have so often felt, but never could so well express. When I hear fine music I am haunted with passages therefrom night and day; and especially at first waking, which, by their importunity, give me more uneasiness than pleasure; elegant lessons still tease my imagination, and recur irresistibly to my recollection at seasons, and even when I am desirous of ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

... you've got me so muddled I don't know what I'm doing. Do you want me to believe that you're people out of a book? Why those old Canterbury Tales' characters never did live, Chaucer just made them up. If you aren't somebody dressed up to tease ...
— The Belles of Canterbury - A Chaucer Tale Out of School • Anna Bird Stewart

... questions," Hal remarked with a smile, for he was much pleased at the opportunity to tease the tall and usually super-wise youth in something of the latter's characteristic manner. "We can't answer all your questions, Cub, but we know there's a mystery about this fellow and his friends, and I suppose we'll ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield

... thee is minded to tease me—the world is full of fools." He straightened as best he could, propping hands on his hips, and divided angry gaze between the man at the fence and the armored figure. "I am not going to die—I have decided to stay alive. I have a ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... do it now!" she laughed. "I am going there to-night just to tease Desmond O'Connor. He refused to ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin

... hungry for society; she would have liked well enough to find herself at a dinner again, and she would have felt a little dancing after the dinner no hardship; but she remembered the promise she had made herself not to tease Maxwell about such things. So she merely coaxed him, and he so far relented as to ask her why she could not go without him, and that hurt her, and she said she never would go without him. All the same, when there came an invitation for lunch, from a particularly nice friend ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... Gallery, were equally sumptuous. The Emperor, however, especially delighted in the masked balls, when, changing his Imperial robes for a simple domino, he whose police system was so perfect, who knew and saw everything, used to baffle the women, and tease or surprise their husbands ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... restaurants and food purveyors invent palate tickling food to tease the human to eat, and hotels and restaurants are mostly patronized by people who do not have much physical work to do; the consequence is ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter

... who was perfectly delighted to be left by himself at Stoneleigh, where he could do as he pleased with Anthony and Dorothy, and his teacher, too, for that matter, and where he was free to talk with and tease and at last make love to Daisy Allen, for his Uncle John paid but little attention to him beyond paying the sum he had pledged, and having him in his family at London and in Derbyshire, for a few weeks each year when it ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... they said to Samson's wife, "Tease your husband until he tells us the riddle, or else we will burn up you and your father's house. Did you invite us here to make us poor?" So Samson's wife wept before him and said, "You only hate me and do not love me at all! You have told a riddle ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman

... scourged or feasted kings? Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs, A surgeon's[263] statement, and an earl's[264] harangues! A bust delayed,[265]—a book[266] refused, can shake The sleep of Him who kept the world awake. Is this indeed the tamer of the Great,[dy] Now slave of all could tease or irritate— The paltry gaoler[267] and the prying spy, The staring stranger with his note-book nigh?[268] 70 Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great; How low, how little was this middle state, Between a prison and a palace, where How few could ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... have a great success. She is going to stay with a married sister for the cold weather. Quite like me, only I'm going to an unmarried brother. I think we are both getting slightly impertinent to our elders. They tease us so at meals in the saloon we have to answer back in self-defence, and it is very difficult to help trying to be smart; sometimes, at least with me, it degenerates into rudeness. I told you about all the people at our table, but I forgot one—a very aged man with a long white ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... friendship with the brilliant beauty before whose gracious coldness they had stood shivering for months; the daring with which he would tuck under his arm, so to speak, the prettiest girl in the room, smooth down as if by magic her hundred prickles, and tease her out of her overwhelming sense of her own self-importance. The secret of his success was, probably, that he was not afraid of them. Desiring nothing from them beyond companionableness, a reasonable amount of appreciation ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome

... the circus," said the doctor, as they said good-by. "Don't tease the elephant, and don't let the ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley

... suppose it was the best poetry, but that it had meant so much to him then that he couldn't judge it now, and, anyway, it was no matter any more. The other children used to tease them a good deal, Mr. Rabbit said, but that he and Bunty had not minded it so very much, only, of course, he wouldn't have had them see his poem for anything. The trouble began when Bunty Bun decided to ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine

... who wish to please Thy master's heart, Tiburtian call; But they who call thee Sabine, these Respect his feelings not at all: And wishing more to tease and fret, Will wager thou art Sabine yet— How well it pleased me to retreat To thy suburban country-seat; Where I sent summarily off That plaguy pulmonary cough; Which, half-deserved, my stomach gave Just ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... to tease your poor Margot,' she said, pleading yet trembling; 'but I know better than to think ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... troubled lest Will and Almy wouldn't notice the child," she said, one afternoon, to Mrs. Stethaway, as they watched the three children crossing the opposite field. "Next I thought they would tyrannize over her, and that Will would tease her to death." ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... fat plum puddin' kind er grunted-like and said: "I'm round and hot and steamin', and I'm heavier than lead, And if you dare to eat me, boy, upon Thanksgivin' Day, I'll come at night and tease you in a frightful sort of way. I'll thump you, and I'll bump you, and I'll jump up high and fall Down on your little stomach like a sizzlin' cannon-ball I'll hound you, and I'll pound you, and I'll screech 'Remember me!' Beware, my boy! Take care, my ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln

... strange," he remarked, "that you cannot learn not to ask to do what I have forbidden. I shall have to punish you every time you do it; for you must learn that no means no, and that you are never to coax or tease after papa has once said it. I love my little girl very dearly, and want to do all I can to make her happy, but I must have her entirely submissive and obedient to me. But stop crying now," he added, wiping her eyes with his handkerchief. "Kiss me, and tell ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley

... Sunday afternoons ordinarily from two to a dozen girl friends called her up at the boarding-house, or dropped in by ones and twos to chat a while, tease her about Jack, or plan some mild frivolity. Hazel went home, wondering if ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... excited, for he could not understand why they would not lift up. He chattered scoldingly at everybody; then tried again. Failing, he sprang down and went to a far corner, in a fine sulk. Evidently he thought Tom was playing a trick on him, and had glued the freckles down someway just to tease him; for Tom, it must be admitted, was greatly given to bothering Grandpa in some ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser

... sold beyond Atlantic day. Brazilla's wilds, Mackensie's savage lands With bickering strife inflame their furious bands; Atlantic isles and Europe's cultured shores Heap their vast wealth, exchange their growing stores, All arts inculcate, new discoveries plan, Tease and torment but school the race of man. While his own federal states, extending far, Calm their brave sons now breathing from the war, Unfold their harbors, spread their genial soil, And welcome freemen to ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... go back, go back to thy plough, With none will I marry, I avow, 375 In the whole Serra da Estrella, In vain wilt thou persist and tease. Catalina is a very good girl And fair enough, though not a pearl, Comes of good stock and loves thee well, 380 And she is very sensible. Then take what's offered thee and so Shalt balm of thy ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... as fast as the men could shell it for them, and we hoped they would be ready for an early market. One morning the two big bulls, Gladstone and Brigham Young, thought spring had come, and they began to tease and butt at each other across the barbed wire that separated them. Soon they got angry. They bellowed and pawed up the soft earth with their hoofs, rolling their eyes and tossing their heads. Each withdrew to a far corner of his own corral, and then they made for each other at a gallop. Thud, ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather



Words linked to "Tease" :   woman, mock, rip up, excite, sex, jest at, shred, comb, straighten out, tantalize, unwelcome person, molestation, prickteaser, persona non grata, bemock, barrack, bedevil, make fun, brush, unsnarl, laugh at, flout, razz, guy, josh, turn on, chaff, roast, kid, loosen, frustrate, dun, disentangle, bait, tear up, comb out, crucify, blackguard, pester, change surface, vexer, manipulate, vamp, jolly, torment, wind up, let down, banter, rib, gibe, keep in line, ridicule, poke fun, card, harassment, adult female, arouse, separate, jeer, disappoint, control, scoff



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