tickle
See also: Tickle
English
Etymology
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.
Pronunciation
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɪkəl
Noun
tickle (plural tickles)
- The act of tickling.
- An itchy feeling resembling the result of tickling.
- I have a persistent tickle in my throat.
- (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!
- 2016, Ann Waterhouse, Cricket Made Simple
- (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.
- 2004, Richard Fortey, The Earth, Folio Society 2011, p. 169:
Verb
tickle (third-person singular simple present tickles, present participle tickling, simple past and past participle tickled)
- (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?
- (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!
- (transitive) To appeal to someone's taste, curiosity etc.
- (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.
- (intransitive) To feel titillation.
- Spenser
- He with secret joy therefore / Did tickle inwardly in every vein.
- Spenser
- (transitive) To catch fish in the hand (usually in rivers or smaller streams) by manually stimulating the fins [often illegal]
- (archaic) To be excited or heartened.
Quotations
- For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:tickle.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations
to touch in a manner that causes tingling sensation
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to feel as if being tickled
to appeal to someone's taste, curiosity etc.
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to catch fish in the hand by stimulating the fins
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Adjective
tickle (comparative more tickle, superlative most tickle)
- 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 [...].
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.4:
Anagrams
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