Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To touch (the body) lightly so as to cause laughter or twitching movements.
  • intransitive verb To tease or excite pleasurably; titillate.
  • intransitive verb To fill with mirth or pleasure; delight.
  • intransitive verb To feel or cause a tingling sensation.
  • noun The act of tickling.
  • noun A tickling sensation.
  • idiom (tickled pink) Very pleased; delighted.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A light teasing touch in some sensitive part; a gentle tickling act or action.
  • Easily moved; unsteady; unstable; inconstant.
  • To tease with repeated light touches in some sensitive part, so as to excite the nerves, thereby producing a peculiar thrilling sensation which commonly results in spasmodic laughter, or, if too long continued, in a convulsion; titillate.
  • To touch, affect, or excite agreeably; gratify; please or amuse by gentle appeals to one's imagination, sense of humor, vanity, or the like.
  • To take, move, or produce by touching lightly.
  • To feel titillation: as, his foot tickled.
  • To tingle pleasantly; thrill with gratification or amusement.
  • To have an impatient or uneasy desire to do or to get something; itch; tingle.
  • To produce the sensation of titillation, or the slight nervous excitement of a light touch on some sensitive part.
  • noun A narrow passage or entrance to a harbor.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To feel titillation.
  • intransitive verb To excite the sensation of titillation.
  • transitive verb To touch lightly, so as to produce a peculiar thrilling sensation, which commonly causes laughter, and a kind of spasm which become dengerous if too long protracted.
  • transitive verb To please; to gratify; to make joyous.
  • adjective obsolete Ticklish; easily tickled.
  • adjective obsolete Liable to change; uncertain; inconstant.
  • adjective obsolete Wavering, or liable to waver and fall at the slightest touch; unstable; easily overthrown.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act of tickling.
  • noun A feeling resembling the result of tickling.
  • noun Newfoundland A narrow strait.
  • verb transitive To touch repeatedly or stroke delicately in a manner which causes the recipient to feel a usually pleasant sensation of tingling or titillation.
  • verb intransitive, of a body part To feel as if the body part in question is being tickled.
  • verb transitive To appeal to someone's taste, curiosity etc.
  • verb transitive To cause delight or amusement.
  • adjective Changeable, capricious; insecure.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb touch (a body part) lightly so as to excite the surface nerves and cause uneasiness, laughter, or spasmodic movements
  • noun the act of tickling
  • verb touch or stroke lightly
  • noun a cutaneous sensation often resulting from light stroking
  • verb feel sudden intense sensation or emotion

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English tikelen, perhaps frequentative of ticken, to touch lightly.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English tikelen, related to Old English tinclian ("to tickle"). Cognate with North Frisian "tigele" (Hallig dialect), and "tiikle" (Amrum dialect).

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Examples

  • The word "tickle" comes from the Middle English tickelen, which it's believed came from ticken, to touch lightly.

    Tickle, tickle (part 2) Heather McDougal 2009

  • The word "tickle" comes from the Middle English tickelen, which it's believed came from ticken, to touch lightly.

    Archive 2009-04-01 Heather McDougal 2009

  • This defense of evidential decision theory is called the tickle defense because it assumes that an introspected condition screens off the correlation between choice and prediction.

    Causal Decision Theory Weirich, Paul 2008

  • Check below and see if any of the week's new titles tickle your fancy.

    Nintendo DS 2010

  • Check below and see if any of the week's new titles tickle your fancy.

    Nintendo DS 2010

  • Check below and see if any of the week's new titles tickle your fancy.

    Nintendo DS Karl B. 2010

  • Check below and see if any of the week's new titles tickle your fancy.

    Nintendo DS Karl B. 2010

  • Bolton needs to stop trying to "tickle" Cheney with that moustache ... lol cheryl

    Cheney named Conservative of the Year 2009

  • Both times the infection started with a little 'tickle' in my skin.

    Value Dave Hingsburger 2007

  • Then, once home, he touched the spot where the 'tickle' was and I could feel, and he could see, that it was nothing.

    Value Dave Hingsburger 2007

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