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Tease   /tiz/   Listen
Tease

noun
1.
Someone given to teasing (as by mocking or stirring curiosity).  Synonyms: annoyer, teaser, vexer.
2.
A seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men.  Synonyms: coquette, flirt, minx, prickteaser, vamp, vamper.
3.
The act of harassing someone playfully or maliciously (especially by ridicule); provoking someone with persistent annoyances.  Synonyms: ribbing, tantalization, teasing.  "His ribbing was gentle but persistent"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tease" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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. Abdalla, seeing her very uneasy, said, "Do not fret and tease yourself, but go into the yard, and take some oil out of one of ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... love-poems and in the poems of satire, in the ballads and in the narrative pieces, and notably in the story of The Pope and the Net, an anecdote in verse, told with the frank relish of the thing, and without the least attempt to tease ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... about her, and to tease her about her lover. They asked her whether he was tall, handsome and rich. When was the wedding to be, and the christening? And often she ran away, to cry by herself, for these questions seemed to hurt her, like the prick of a pin, and in order to forget their ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... child of the whole, is a fine, healthy, lively, sprightly, laughing little girl, who feels no pain, and has no cause for sorrow. She is a kind of plaything for her elder brothers and sisters, who all delight in her good-humour. They never tease, torment, and try to put her out of temper, as some children do to those who are younger than themselves, but they commend her goodness and strive to improve her. When they tell her not to do anything, she obeys them at once: for ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick

... tease was not in the least abashed. She could imitate almost any sound that she had ever heard, and each success made her eager to repeat her efforts ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks

... the tension with her exclamation: "No, Contarini mia, all knights are not like that: I said it but to tease thee. Tell it to the Dama Margherita with a face like that, and she will make it a second 'Kypria,' for she hath, verily the gift. I have not such a tale of knighthood to tell thee: yet, if thou carest for my tidings they would make a canto for the new Kypria of the Dama Margherita, ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... you. No, it's not the least use asking questions, Clary; but mind, you must not tease me any more about running away: that ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... in early management, get possessed with the idea that they may have every thing. They even tease for things it would be impossible to give them. A child properly managed will seldom ask twice for what you have once told him he should not have. But if you have the care of one who has acquired this habit, the best way to cure him of it is never to give him what he asks for, whether his request ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur

... would suggest that if we tire with the sameness of our culinary efforts, we at least try some of the new dishes described in this department, established for the sole purpose of their introduction. In so doing we accomplish a multiple purpose. We enlarge the resources of the southwest. We tease stale appetites with a new tang. We offer the world something different, yet native to us. We use modern methods on Indian material and the results are most surprising. In trying these dishes I would remind you that few of us cared for oysters, olives, celery—almost any fruit or vegetable one ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... said, "you'd better not tease Jed too much about that good-lookin' tenant of his. He's so queer and so bashful that I'm afraid if you do he'll take a notion to turn the Armstrongs ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... smiled at her as he spoke, and Elizabeth was so enchanted to notice the gradual passing away of the look of illness, the brightening of the eye, and slight filling out of the face, that he might tease her as he pleased. ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... by 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 remark to me, especially ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... feeling that a little boy has, when he races with another boy. The latter runs a little faster perhaps, and the boy that is behind tries to hinder or tease him in some way, so that he may lose the race. I suppose my horse didn't want the other to pass him, and so tried ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson

... the realm," decided the King, jestingly; for he was now convinced that her Adair was but a jest to tease him—a Roland for ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... all sides. I was black and blue. Because I was the smallest in the "Cheder"—the smallest and the weakest and the poorest, no one defended me. On the contrary, the two rich boys tortured me. One got on top of me, and the other pulled me by the ear. Whilst the third—a poor boy—sang a song to tease me— ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich

... fellow. He is about thirty, and has been in this state since he was eighteen, when he had a bad fever. He is perfectly tractable, quite inoffensive, and thoroughly good-tempered. The only reason for moving him from his present home is that it is in a village, and the children tease and annoy him. I fancy the Lamonts ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... pardon; I wanted to catch Lucy and bring her back to prayers. She's quite wild this morning; I expect it's because of the birthday being so near, but it does tease Miss Nelson so when the children don't come ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... lonely or lonesome, household to discuss this new and strange phenomenon—the intrusion of an outsider, and he a young man. But the earnestness in Madelene's voice made her father and her sister feel that to tease ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... never make him talk in the world," she declared. "Thou and I will have a good laugh at her when 'tis over. 'Twill give a fine chance to tease." ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... Douglas would let the mail boat doctor sell the silver fox and other skins for them, and Emily would go to the hospital and after a little while come back her old gay little self again, to romp and play and laugh and tease him as she used to do. With fancy making for him these dreams of happiness, the day passed after all much less tediously ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... that was hurt. Had she taken the teasing of the meaner girls in a wiser spirit, she knew they would not have sent her the dunce cap. They continued to tease her because they knew they could ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson

... tease old Madam Buzwig," says her ladyship. She wants to treat me as a child, and do the grandmother over me. I don't want no grandmothers, I don't. I'm the head of this house, and I intend to let her know it. And I've brought her all the way from London in order to tell it ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... her costume did not incense the young lady as it ought to have done. On the contrary, for some occult feminine reason, it amused and interested her. It would be such a good story to tell her friends of a "drummer's" idea of gallantry; and to tease the flirtatious young West Pointer who had just joined. And the appraisement was truthful—Major Cantire had only his pay—and Miss Cantire had been obliged to select that hat from ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... Lettice Talbot. "Sometimes if you tease her she starts with a bang, and lets off steam for five minutes. Then it's all over, and she's quite pleasant again, until ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... pleasure of the senses, gratification of the palate, in short, all the grosser tastes. All that is not only like savages, but like animals. They are merry and contented at the prospect of a savory meal, and they are fond of playing tricks on each other—both sexes chaff and tease constantly. I believe that the development of our larger brain is the intellectual work of man during hundreds and thousands of years, and it would gratify me to see it raised to a ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... found 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 horses will ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell

... suggested Mr. Hastings, wishing to tease his wife. "And nothing, I am told, mortifies a woman more than to be caught with her hair in papers, and her arms in the suds. So, if you value your friend Eugenia's feelings, you had better ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes

... you got it done the more I should be willing to pay for it." He paused a moment. "And, Miss Fitch," he went on, "I don't care if you make it a little,—well,—a little soft. She deserves it, she's such a tease! Her name's Beatrice," he added. "We call her Trix, if that'll ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... and 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 they, too, would ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... answered Frolich. "Come now, do not tease me with bidding me remember the Bishop of Tronyem's cattle. The underground people have something to do elsewhere to-day; they ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... you without anyone knowing it. I shall be at Les Fresnes on the 2d of September, the day before the hunting season opens, as I do not want to miss it, so that I may tease these gentlemen. You are too good, aunt, and you will allow them, as you usually do when there are no strange guests, to come to table, under pretext of fatigue, without dressing or ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... your fritter. Be sure that it is a young fritter. The way to tell the age of a fritter is to count its teeth. Remove the shell and add a pitcher of apple sauce. Place this in a saucepan and tease it with a pinch of baking soda. Let it simper two hours. Serve hot and smile rapidly while eating. Laughter always ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott

... and troublesome a manner as occasioned his being complained of by those miserable wretches who were under the same condemnation, as a greater grievance to them than all their other misfortunes put together. He would sometimes threaten women who came into the hold to visit modestly, tease them with obscene discourse, and after his being prisoner there committed acts of lewdness to the amazement and horror of the most wicked and abandoned wretches in that dreadful place. Being however severely reprimanded for continuing so beastly a course of life, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... upon her lips and a warm cheek was laid against her own, as Lucy said, "Of course, I'll forgive you, though I do not quite understand why you should wish to discourage me or tease me either, when I liked you so much from the first moment I heard your voice and saw you in the choir. You don't dislike me, ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... wrote to Athens, and invited to Alexandria, Sphaerus, who had been the pupil of Zeno. One day when Sphaerus was dining with the king, he said that a wise man should never guess, but only say what he knows. Philopator, wishing to tease him, ordered some waxen pomegranates to be handed to him, and when Sphaerus bit one of them he laughed at him for guessing that it was real fruit. But the stoic answered that there are many cases in which our actions must be guided by what seems ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... religious books that are tolerable as to style, but which display no power or prominence of thought, no living vigor of expression; they are flat and dry as a plain of sand. They tease you with the thousandth repetition of common-places, causing a feeling of unspeakable weariness. Though the author is surrounded with rich immeasurable fields of truth and beauty, he treads for ever the same narrow track already trodden ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... was announced; the first consul declared that he and his wife would attend, and he invited Mehul, whom he liked to tease and worry, because he loved him from his heart, to attend the ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... press his suit. He was listened to attentively, and at last he proposed an early day for the union. The widow blushed, and turned her head away, and at last replied, with a sweet smile, "Well, Mr Vanslyperken, I will neither tease you nor myself—when you come back from your next trip, I consent ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... bow down to it to-day, and to-morrow to cast it into the mire, with Vuiduibai, father vuiduibai![3] No! they have chosen the wrong man. They may spin their traitorous intrigues with the King of Poland, and hail him their lord; but I will go myself and tell Tver who is her real master. Tease me no ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... his Lucy cannot do enough for me. He tries to laugh, scold, tease, and coax me into health. Mammy is steeping up gin and mustard, which, they say, is a sure cure for the chills. Dearly beloved friends! They little know how soothingly their kindness falls upon the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... promise. Of course she may only have done it to tease me; but as we were going home she said she could not walk out of the room if she happened to be there when he called, nor could she leave word with the servants to say that they were not at home. She made a lot of excuses. What are you ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... 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 heels whenever ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... watch hanging on that nail by the table? Seems to me I saw it there this morning. I remember thinking I would tease ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... the side of the vessel, but now the fascination of the scene had all faded out. The restless billows were dreary, savage, hungry and dizzying; they seemed to claw at, and tear, and wrench the struggling ship as a group of huge lions would tease and worry a captive dog. They distressed her and all on board by dealing a blow which would send her reeling in one direction, but before she had swung the full length that impulse would have sent her, catching her on the opposite side with ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... what a tease you are. Well, it will keep you quiet for a while and I suppose you must ...
— Pages for Laughing Eyes • Unknown

... waffles, I thought waffles and brides always went together. So when I was included in the invitation to Dorothy's wedding luncheon, my first thought was of waffles. I said something about it to my brother, and Ralph was just tease enough to lead me on. He told me that the table would be piled with waffles, great stacks of them at every plate! Like a little dunce I believed it all and went to that party anticipating a blissful supply of waffles. In vain I looked up and down the elegant table! I ate and ate, but ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd

... dropping pebbles, or launching wads of paper for a cruise. With their sharp eye for eccentricity, they were inclined to think Mr. Ambrose awful; but the quickest witted cried "Bluebeard!" as he passed. In case they should proceed to tease his wife, Mr. Ambrose flourished his stick at them, upon which they decided that he was grotesque merely, and four instead of one ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... immature soldiers among the Insurrectos, and most 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 ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... his employer. Mrs. Deacon seemed to him so overwhelmingly mature that he had no idea how to treat her. And the child Monona he would like to roll in the river. Even Di ... He fell silent, was silent on the walk home which was the signal for Di to tease him steadily. The little being was afraid of silence. It was too vast for her. She was like ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale

... Sunday evening with some young man. Their conversation is vulgar and prosaic; there is nothing in the language they use that suggests an ideal or any conception of the abstract. They make jokes, state facts about the work, tease each other, but in all they say there is not a word of value—nothing that would interest if repeated out of its class. They have none of the sagaciousness of the low-born Italian, none of the wit and penetration ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... angel to three lively brothers who tease and play with her.... Her unconscious goodness brings right thoughts and resolves to several persons who come into contact with her. There is no goodiness in this tale, but its influence is of the best ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... but not much perseverance or energy, and I must take the teaching of him into my own hands till his school-days begin, in hopes of instilling them. The girlishness and timidity will be knocked out of him by the boys, I suppose; Harry is too kind and generous to do more than tease him moderately, and Norman will see that it does not go too far. It is a common saying that Tom and Mary made a mistake, that he is the girl, and she the boy, for she is a rough, merry creature, the noisiest in the house, always skirmishing with Harry in defence of Tom, and yet devoted ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... to confess that heart and stomach were at war within him, that he could digest affronts which pained his heart, and, cost what it might, a good dinner that satisfied his palate was a necessity to him, even as your gay Lothario must have a mistress to tease. ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... Kenneth liked to tease his sister-in-law, but the young girl was quite his equal when it came to a battle of wits and it was not often that she ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow

... are just silly to tease me about any bank clerk. I don't like him any more at all and he can go with Linda all he ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... make ourselves a place apart Behind light words that tease and flout, But oh, the agitated heart Till someone find us really out. 'Tis pity if the case require (Or so we say) that in the end We speak the literal to inspire The understanding of a friend. But so with all, from babes that play At hide-and-seek ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost

... out." It seemed as though her thoughts loved wilfully to tease and confuse her. Then when she was completely tangled, and bewildered, her temper rose, slowly, stealthily, but with a mighty force behind it; suddenly as a flood bursts the walls that have been trying to resist it, it ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... 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 ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas

... one man who might and would get me if he thought he could get away with it. But why should he wish to shoot a woman? Crawl out to the left and then go in and let the folks know everything is all right now. I'm going to hang around a bit and try to tease that cayuse into ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower

... seemed to consider himself called upon to preserve a great degree of dignity and decorum in our society. As he jogged along a little distance ahead of us, the young dogs would gambol about him, leap on his neck, worry at his ears, and endeavor to tease him into a frolic. The old dog would keep on for a long time with imperturbable solemnity, now and then seeming to rebuke the wantonness of his young companions. At length he would make a sudden turn, seize ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

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

... as a poet, wretched as a restless cuckoo, and would say to himself, "I must take to myself a wife. She would keep the house tidy, keep the plates hot for me, fold the clothes for me, sew my buttons on, sing merrily about the house, tease me to do everything according to her taste, would say to me as they all say to their husbands when they want a jewel, 'Oh, my own pet, look at this, is it not pretty?' And every one in the quarter will think of my wife and then of me, and say 'There's a happy ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... a highly-wrought crowd. Ruskin's description is fitting: "You can talk a mob into anything; its feelings may be—usually are—on the whole, generous and right, but it has no foundation for them, no hold of them. You may tease or tickle it into anything at your pleasure. It thinks by infection, for the most part, catching an opinion like a cold, and there is nothing so little that it will not roar itself wild about, when the fit is on, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... not a kind Mama, that we are to have, instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like Miss Murdstone, always following us about—isn't it, Jip? Never mind, Jip. We won't be confidential, and we'll make ourselves as happy as we can in spite of her, and we'll tease her, and not please ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... subsided, the lips ceased whistling and quivering, the head was bent forward as though listening. I came still nearer, examined him still more closely.... The stranger held in each hand a small flat cup, such as people use to tease canaries and make them sing. A twig snapped under my feet; the stranger started, turned his dim little eyes towards the copse, and was staggering away ... but he stumbled against a tree, uttered an ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... gun on me, or I'd dust your heels for you!" Then she turned to Mary Hope, who was listening with titillating horror to the painted Jezebel's unorthodox method of reproving her offspring. "Get right down, honey, and come in and rest. And don't mind Lance; he's an awful tease, especially when he likes a person. Tie your horse to the fence—or turn him in the corral, if he'll ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... two, three, Are come back again, you see; Up they came the moment after, To enjoy the fun and laughter. Each popped out his little head, And, to tease poor Johnny, said "Silly little Johnny, look, ...
— Struwwelpeter: Merry Tales and Funny Pictures • Heinrich Hoffman

... him grew almost into mania. I took the note, saw at a glance that it was addressed to me, and said: "All right," in a tone quite different from the one I had been using to tease ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower

... Then, if for a moment Clemence seemed to fall short, there was Lavender, ready to pour out floods of sympathy, to mingle her tears with yours, and listen to endless reminiscences. As for the boys, Harry and Russell forbore to tease, affected blindness to reddened eyes, and said, "Buck up, old girl!" with real heartiness of feeling, while Tim was assiduous in ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... 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 ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... here, Dad!" exclaimed Lester, "I can see by what you're saying that you know more about this thing than we do. Don't tease us by acting in such a mysterious way. Come right ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... said Sally. She was trying to tease him, but her face showed a little of the strain. "I read the magazine articles too. In fact I sometimes show the tame article writers around, when they're cleared ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... hear the whistle so close to his ears; it made his ears hurt, so he said "Meow!" and started to walk away, and the naughty little boy laughed, and blew the whistle with all his might. Then the farmer's wife said: "Do not tease the kitty, Donald!" ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field

... bitterly. "But you contradict yourself, Frances. Just a moment ago you said what a much nicer boy Vic would have made. All boys aren't like Geoff. Of course, I don't mean that he is really a bad boy; but it just comes over me now and then that it is a shame he should be such a tease and worry, boy or not. When mamma is anxious, and with good reason, and we girls are doing all we can, why should Geoff be the one we have to keep away from her, and to smooth down, as it were? It's all for her sake, of course; but it makes me ashamed, all the same, to feel that we are really ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth

... girl glanced 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 her till ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... it was of no use to tease Tommy Tit for his secret, so instead he poured out all his own troubles. He told how lonesome he had been in the dear Old Briar-patch on the Green Meadows because he didn't dare to go about for fear of Old ...
— Mrs. Peter Rabbit • Thornton W. Burgess

... sitting with his long legs dangling over the derrick pit, watched his father and 'Masso tease the derrick into swinging the great blocks to the flat ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... expression as you said that gave you away, Herr. But I suppose it is very bold and impudent of me to tease you ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond

... use to tease," Bertram had interposed once, with an airy wave of his hands. "This lion always did refuse to roar to order. If you really must hear him, you'll have to slip up-stairs and camp outside his door, waiting patiently for such crumbs as may fall from ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter

... Rat to madness tease Why ev'n a Rat may plague you: There's no Philosopher but sees That Rage and Fear are one disease— Though that may burn, and this may freeze, 65 They're both ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... fastest has much the advantage, as they can engage or not as they please, and so have always in their power to choose the favourable opportunity to attack. I think I may safely hazard an opinion that twenty-five sail of the line coppered would be sufficient to harass and tease this great unwieldy combined Armada so as to prevent their effecting anything, hanging continually upon them, ready to catch at any opportunity of a separation from night, gale or fog, to dart upon the ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett

... Angelina-Elfrida, which her mother had given her for Christmas, she placed the two beauties on the hearth-rug, one on each side of the corn-cob, just to see the difference. This seemed to make Peter very cross. He tried his best to snatch away the old doll, but Rudolf, to tease him, held him off with one hand while with the other he seized the poor creature by her long braids and swung her slowly ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels

... 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 thinking ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

... good-humoured and cheerful; honest M'Hearty, rough and genial; young Murray, the boy marine officer, merry and innocent; and Simmons the master, who would have his growl, who was all thunder without the lightning, but a very excellent old fellow, when young Murray didn't tease him too much. Between M'Hearty, Fairlie, Murray, and Jack himself a strange sort of a compact was made. It was Murray who proposed it one lovely moonlight night, when the four were together on the poop. Young Murray ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... company yesterday; and, as I am giving you the trouble of reading these lines, in order to keep in your memory your promise to procure me the fishing-tackle and cross-bow from London, I will enclose her verses on the Grave of Wogan. This I know will tease her; for, to tell you the truth, I think her more in love with the memory of that dead hero than she is likely to be with any living one, unless he shall tread a similar path. But English squires ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... over her miseries and disappointments, and she declined. Lord Kilcullen was behind her chair, and when they pressed her, he whispered to her, "Don't sing for them, Fanny; it's a shame that they should tease you at such a time; I wonder how my mother can ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... Certainly she would tease him a little about the neat way he and papa had dropped her out of the Works. "And I thought I was the one who ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... were even a ghost of a doubt as to the final acceptance! As if I dared play this heavy fish an instant, with such a frail line? Ah, mamma! don't tease me by such tactics! I am but an insignificant mouse, and you and Mr. Congreve are such a grim pair of cats, that I should never venture the faintest squeak. Don't roll me under your velvet paws, and pat ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... by Wilhelmine's beautiful face and bright clothes, had begged a paper flower from the Christmas tree and offered it to her. Partly because she loved to tease children, partly because the child's talk made a diversion from the Duchess-mother's acid remarks, Wilhelmine began bantering with the little boy, telling him the wildest tales, witty absurdities, sheer delightful fooling. The Erbprinz, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... unlike the King, who, writes Horace Walpole,' expecting only an attack on Chambers, bought it to tease, and began reading it to, him; but, finding it more bitter on himself, flung it down on the floor in a passion, and would read no more.' Journal of the Reign of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... Governor and we are his people who must obey: When he comes back he will ask you to obey him too, and you must say 'yes.' That will be at the sleep-time: eight, nine, ten days. But why do you ask, Monsieur Captain? Has not Mme. Czerny said it because you are her friend? I know that you tease me. Sailors love to tease little girls, and you are no better than the ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton

... the wisp of tow, for I expect you tease him with that question somehow. But I'll find out from him why you ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... "I want to tease you," she said, sitting down in the armchair. "To tell you the truth, I do not know why I like to ask you such ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... the place is too quiet for me. I could not stay in a town that is given over to learning and piety. The sound of their everlasting carillon would tease my ear with the thought, 'Lo, another quarter of an hour gone of my poor remnant of days, and nothing to do but to doze in the sunshine or fondle my spaniel, fill my pipe, or ride a lazy horse on a level road, such as I have ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... Could I go away?—But you are beginning to tease, and will soon punish me severely; so I will make my escape while all is well. It would be presumptuous to expect more ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... that is being like girls, why, with all my heart; I like girls well enough, and if they behave well I do not see why you should speak so contemptuously of them. My papa always says that he loves girls just as well as boys, and none but foolish and naughty boys despise and tease them.' Just as he said these words, Simon and John entered the barn, and seeing Will stand idle, 'Come, come, young gentleman,' said John, 'take up your flail and go to work, sir, to work! to work! night will be here presently, and you have done nothing yet.' Presently after the gentleman ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner

... 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 ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous

... the day before yesterday,' I was beginning to say, but I didn't. For I thought to myself, if there was any real trouble about Peterkin, it wouldn't be at all a good time to tease each other. I don't think Elf—that's Elvira's pet name—had understood about him being lost. Indeed, I don't think I had quite taken it in myself, till I saw how grave the ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... little girl's cousin came home to her tepee, some rough boys who were playing about began to make sport of her. To tease the little girl they threw stones and sticks at the pet rabbit. At last a stick struck the little rabbit upon the ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin

... for you?" Bob inquired, nudging Hugh with his elbow. He loved to tease both Karl and Heinrich ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene

... Creole nature also interested him, and he spent much of his spare time sketching and studying the people. Two friendships he made there were diverse and lasting, but he complains very much of feeling the lack of a woman friend—no one to tease ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey

... still peremptory ardent tones. She remained alone upon the level square of smooth sand. Not a soul was in sight, for when the King came to seek distraction with his horses he brought no one that could tease him. She was ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... money; in the second, I have always been obliged to 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 myself, and as I saw at once ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... last. Accordingly, as if commissioned with a search warrant, she ransacked all her mother's drawers, bags, and bundles in quest of new pieces; and these spoils proving very insufficient, she set off to tax all her friends, and to tease all the linen drapers in the town for their odds and ends, urging that she wanted some particularly. As she was posting along the street on this business, she espied at a distance a person whom she had no wish to encounter, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... up his hands in protest, hastily denying any probable charge that the tease might make. "Why, I haven't been ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller

... threatening sky seemed in harmony with his storm-riven soul. He was so young—less than half an hour older than the big whole-hearted fellow who started up the bluff in picnic frolic with a pretty girl whom Professor Burgess adored. That was one reason why he had brought her up. He wanted to tease the Professor then. He hated Burgess now, and the white teeth clinched ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... ever a tease," said Mrs. Taylor of her childhood friend, and Mr. Taylor observed that there was always safety in numbers. "She'll get used to the ways of this country quicker than our little ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister

... are getting to be a regular tease, Mr. Witherspoon. After awhile I shall be afraid to talk ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... had been so amiable and docile for months past, that no one was in haste to be rid of her presence. Even Rosie was quite friendly with her, had ceased to tease and vex her; and mutual forbearance had given each a better opinion of the other ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley

... went out in a kind of stupor. A few of the white boys jeered me, saying: "Oh, you're a nigger too." I heard some black children say: "We knew he was colored." "Shiny" said to them: "Come along, don't tease him," and thereby won my undying gratitude. I hurried on as fast as I could, and had gone some distance before I perceived that "Red Head" was walking by my side. After a while he said to me: "Le' me carry your books." I gave him my strap without ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... her hands together, wringing her gloves into a shred. She moistened her dry lips, and blinked desperately to crowd away those tears. Yes, it was Connie, the little baby sister she used to tease so mercilessly, and Julia, the little rosebud baby she had wanted so many nights. She could not bear to let those ugly tears dim her sight for one minute, she dare not miss one second of that feast to ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston

... through the days unkempt in body and savage in soul, as the smaller boys of the school learned to know, for when the spirit moved him he would hit them, cunningly and with science. The same spirit made him more than once try to tease Maisie, but the girl refused to be made unhappy. "We are both miserable as it is," said she. "What is the use of trying to make things worse? Let's find things to do, and ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... for his chum, sauntered into the candy store for caramels, joined the appreciative group that watched a drunken man forcibly ejected from Casserley's saloon, visited the pool room and witnessed a game or two, gone back into the street to tease two hurrying and giggling girls with his young wit, and drifted into a passing juggler's wretched and vulgar show. This, or something like this, was what Len craved when he begged to "go out for a while" after dinner. It was sometimes a little more entertaining, sometimes less so; but ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... '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 oh, Beranger, Narcisse told me—ah, was it to tease me?—that Diane has told them all they wanted to know, for that they sent her here on purpose to see if we were not ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... men tease the last speaker good-naturedly, and they all laugh together. Every one of them is intoxicated by the peace of the sleeping town and the autumn garden. Every one of them wants to make the most ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... in Jane's own particular bower, known to the family as the Weeping Willows because she had once retired there to cry out her troubles, and had been discovered in a very moist state by Frank, who was a merciless tease. ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... little regard is had to the rules of honourable hostility, but every weapon is accounted lawful, and those that cannot make a thrust at life are content to keep themselves in play with petty malevolence, to tease with feeble blows ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... romantic, is not lively or delusive enough to paint an object that can, in my eyes, atone for your absence. From this you will conclude that the news you heard of me at Princeton is groundless. It is so far from being true, that scarce two persons can fix on the same lady to tease me with. However, I would not have you think that this diversity of opinion arises from the volatility of my constitution, or that I am in love with every new or pretty face I see. But, I hope, you know me too well to need a caution of this nature. I am very glad to hear of ——-'s downfall. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... course he would! 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

... made them despise any approach to the meanness of which he was supposed guilty. Hamilton, though in the study the whole evening, took no notice of him, and when his eyes met Louis', they bore no more consciousness of his presence than if he had been a piece of stone. Frank Digby did not tease Louis, but he let fall many insinuations, and a few remarks so bitter in their sarcasm, that Reginald more than once looked up with a glance so threatening in its fierceness, that it checked even that audacious ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... competitors. Before long, the feeling of the crowd began to set against him, showing itself first in the smaller fry, who began half playfully to throw pebbles and lumps of dry earth at him. Then they would run up slyly and strike him with sticks. Presently the large ones began to tease him in like manner, till the contagion of hostility spread, and the whole pack was arrayed against the strange boy. He kept them at bay for a few moments with his stick, till, the feeling mounting higher and higher, he broke through their ranks, and fled precipitately ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... and all vile reptiles crawl around you as you walk, But these you never hear about in Mr. Jordan’s talk; Mosquitoes, too, and sandflies, they will tease you all the night, And until you get quite colonised ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson

... these arrangements, he was released from the ties which hobbled him, and we commenced the arduous task of driving him towards the village, a distance of five miles. The only method of getting him along, was to keep two men to tease him in front, by shouting and waving cloths before his face; he immediately charged these fellows, who, of course, ran in the right direction for the village, and by this repeated manoeuvre we reached the borders of the tank by nightfall. We were ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... But women have such 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 women, already secret enemies, were apparently the ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... please, and let us be friends," said Frances, coaxingly. "I am not a duchess. I am only a girl like yourself. My name is Mistress Jennings—Frances. Nelly Gwynn was jesting when she spoke of me as a duchess, and only wanted to tease you when she objected to the table linen. She is good and kind—no one ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major

... said the Fairy, "you have no choice now; it is too late; you must all start with us.... But you, Fire, don't come near anybody; you, Dog, don't tease the Cat; you, Water, try not to run all over the place; and you, Sugar, stop crying, unless you want to melt. Bread shall carry the cage in which to put the Blue Bird; and you shall all come to my house, where I will dress the Animals and the ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc

... knows not what he would have nor what he would say. I must sit down again. I declare I scarcely understand a single syllable. Well, he is very good, to tease you no longer. Epicurus has an excellent heart; he would give pain to no one; least of all ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... delights to tease the older, to doubt her motives, to interrupt her meditations. It wants to play, while my older self is more seriously inclined. My younger self is only twelve years old. This is my real self. To my own mind I am still a little girl with short dresses and a bunch of curls. For ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... advertisement. I don't think my going will make much difference to father, as he has only offered one dollar reward for me. You need not show this letter to him. I send you my love, and I also send my love to Mary, though she used to tease me sometimes. And now I must ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger

... ways and means! They did tease and plague so. I do believe Carry Price counts every grape that goes into this house— and they would know how I got my new music—and little Robina would tell—and then came something about Mr. Froggatt; and if ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... merely jesting with me. You want to tease, to ridicule a wretched creature who is nothing ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... come from church and schoolroom, blind To suffering of lesser things, unfeeling and unkind; He heard them taunt the poor, and tease their furred and feathered kin; And no voice spake from home or church to tell them this was sin. He heard the cry of wounded things, the wasteful gun's report; He saw the morbid craze to kill, which Christian ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... I loved you, John: Why will you tease me day by day, And wax a weariness to think upon With always 'do' ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... hundreds a year, and there was mother and myself and Tom to support. Tom is my cousin—Tom McDonald—who lived with us and fell in love with me, though I never tried to make him. I liked him ever so much, though he used to tease me horribly, and put horn-bugs in my shoes, and worms on my neck, and Jack-o'-lanterns in my room, and tip me off his sled into the snow; but still I liked him, for with all his teasing he had a great, kind, unselfish heart, and I shall never forget that look on his face ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes

... CHOICE that that ruffian Waters took such liberties with me. Didn't I show how averse I was to all quarrels by refusing altogether his challenge?—But such is the world. And thus the people at Stiffelkind's used to tease me, until ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray

... boy named Joe, who haunts about the bar-room and the stoop, four years old, in a thin, short jacket, and full-breeched trousers, and bare feet. The men tease him, and put quids of tobacco in his mouth, under pretence of giving him a fig; and he gets curaged, and utters a peculiar, sharp, spiteful cry, and strikes at them with a stick, to their great mirth. He is always in trouble, yet will not keep away. They ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... white against the sun.... Fairy bungalows nesting in tropic gardens and waving welcome with their palm-fronds to the rushing train.... The Baie des Anges laughing with sky and hills.... The many-tunnelled cliff-route from Villefranche to Cap D'Ail, where moments of darkness tease one to longing for the sight of the azure coves dotted with white-winged yachts and foam-slashed motor-boats.... Europe's ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... became more and more necessary to little Silvio. If she only went out-of-doors for a few moments, he considered it a misfortune. He was obedient and quiet enough, however, when she stayed with him; and did every thing she bade him do, and did not tease his mother ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri

... Brownie his bad ways forsake, For it's a fact he takes the cake, If he can't find the candy! And if you clap your hands and shoo, He'll only make a face at you; There's only one thing you can do— Just keep the pepper handy! For, as a Brownie hates to sneeze, Or blow his nose if it should tease, Or any wholesome acts like these, He can't ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg

... that you think yourself very clever at hoaxing men, and so you must needs tease me a little;" and, as he spoke, he took her hand, and drew her close up to him, and she, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford



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



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