tickle

From Middle English tiklen, tikelen, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from a frequentative form of Middle English tikken (“to touch lightly”), thus equivalent to tick +‎ -le; or perhaps related to Old English tinclian (“to tickle”). Compare North Frisian tigele (“to tickle”) (Hallig dialect), and tiikle (“to tickle”) (Amrum dialect), German dialectal zicklen (“to excite; stir up”). Alternatively, compare Middle English kitlelen ("to tickle"; see kittle), of which tickle might ultimately be a metathetic alteration of.

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• Rhymes: -ɪkəl

tickle (plural tickles)

1. The act of tickling.
2. An itchy feeling resembling the result of tickling.

   I have a persistent tickle in my throat.

3. (cricket, informal) A light tap of the ball.
   • 2016, Ann Waterhouse, Cricket Made Simple

     There's a very fine line between a tickle and an edge!

4. (Newfoundland) A narrow strait.
   • 2004, Richard Fortey, The Earth, Folio Society 2011, p. 169:

     Cow Head itself is a prominent headland connected to the settlement by a natural causeway, or ‘tickle’ as the Newfoundlanders prefer it.

tickle (third-person singular simple present tickles, present participle tickling, simple past and past participle tickled)

1. (transitive) To touch repeatedly or stroke delicately in a manner which causes laughter and twitching.

   He tickled Nancy's tummy, and she started to giggle.

   • Shakespeare

     If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

2. (intransitive, of a body part) To feel as if the body part in question is being tickled.

   My nose tickles, and I'm going to sneeze!

3. (transitive) To appeal to someone's taste, curiosity etc.
4. (transitive) To cause delight or amusement in.

   He was tickled to receive such a wonderful gift.

   • Alexander Pope

     Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.

   • Shakespeare

     Such a nature / Tickled with good success, disdains the shadow / Which he treads on at noon.

5. (intransitive) To feel titillation.
   • Spenser

     He with secret joy therefore / Did tickle inwardly in every vein.

6. (transitive) To catch fish in the hand (usually in rivers or smaller streams) by manually stimulating the fins [often illegal]
7. (archaic) To be excited or heartened.

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:tickle.

• kittle

tickle (comparative more tickle, superlative most tickle)

1. Changeable, capricious; insecure.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.4:

     So ticle be the termes of mortall state, / And full of subtile sophismes, which do play / With double senses, and with false debate [...].

• Keltic