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tickle

 - 6 dictionary results

tick⋅le

[tik-uhl] verb, -led, -ling, noun
–verb (used with object)
1. to touch or stroke lightly with the fingers, a feather, etc., so as to excite a tingling or itching sensation in; titillate.
2. to poke some sensitive part of the body so as to excite spasmodic laughter.
3. to excite agreeably; gratify: to tickle someone's vanity.
4. to excite amusement in: The clown's antics really tickled the kids.
5. to get, move, etc., by or as by tickling: She tickled him into saying yes.
–verb (used without object)
6. to be affected with a tingling or itching sensation, as from light touches or strokes: I tickle all over.
7. to produce such a sensation.
–noun
8. an act or instance of tickling.
9. a tickling sensation.
10. tickled pink, Informal. greatly pleased: She was tickled pink that someone had remembered her birthday.

Origin:
1300–50; ME tikelen, freq. of tick 1 (in obs. sense) to touch lightly


4. amuse, please, delight, enchant.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To tickle
tick·le   (tĭk'əl)   
v.   tick·led, tick·ling, tick·les

v.   tr.
  1. To touch (the body) lightly so as to cause laughter or twitching movements.

    1. To tease or excite pleasurably; titillate: suspense that tickles the reader's curiosity.

    2. To fill with mirth or pleasure; delight. See Synonyms at please.

v.   intr.
To feel or cause a tingling sensation.
n.  
  1. The act of tickling.

  2. A tickling sensation.


[Middle English tikelen, perhaps frequentative of ticken, to touch lightly.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

tickle 
c.1330 (intrans.) "to be thrilled or tingling," of uncertain origin, possibly a frequentative form of tick (2) in its older sense of "to touch." The OE form was tinclian. Some suggest a metathesis of kittle (M.E. kytyllen), from Du. kietelen, from a common North Sea Gmc. word for "to tickle" (cf. O.N. kitla, O.H.G. kizzilon, Ger. kitzeln). Meaning "to excite agreeably" (c.1386) is a translation of L. titillare. Meaning "to touch lightly so as to cause a peculiar and uneasy sensation" is recorded from 1398; that of "to poke or touch so as to excite laughter" is from 1423; fig. sense of "to excite, amuse" is attested from 1688. The noun is recorded from 1801. Ticklish in the lit. sense of "easily tickled" is recorded from 1598, later than the fig. sense (1581); an earlier word for this was tickly (1530). Tickled "pleased, happy" is from 1586.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Medical Dictionary

Main Entry: 1tick·le
Pronunciation: 'tik-&l
Function: verb
Inflected Forms: tick·led; tick·ling /-(&-)li[ng]/
intransitive senses
1 : to have a tingling or prickling sensation tickles>
2 : to excitethe surface nerves to prickle tickle transitive senses
: to touch (as a body part) lightly so as to excite the surface nerves and cause uneasiness, laughter, or spasmodicmovements

Main Entry: 2tickle
Function: noun
1 : the act of tickling
2 : a tickling sensation tickle inthe throat —Karl Menninger>
3 : something that tickles
Computing Dictionary

Tickle text, tool
A text editor, file translator and TCL interpreter for the Macintosh.
Version 5.0v1. The text editor breaks the 32K limit (like MPW).
The file translation utilities support drag and drop handling via tcl scripts of BinHex, MacBinary, Apple Computer Single/Double, StuffIt (with engine), Unix compress, Unix tar and UUencode files as well as text translation.
Tickle implements tcl 7.0 with tclX extensions and Macintosh equivalents of Unix's ls, pwd, cd commands. It provides Macintosh access to Resource Manager, Communications Toolbox, OSA Components (and AppleScript), Editions (publish and subscribe) and Apple Events (including AEBuild and AEPrint). OSA Script support allows programming of any OSA scripting component within Tickle interpreter windows. It provides the OSAtcl and OSAJ J/APL extensions and creates "Ticklets" which are small application programs that carry only the tcl script and use code in the OSAtcl component to drive an application that allows drag and drop with tcl scripts. Tickle is scriptable and recordable.
(ftp://ftp.msen.com/pub/vendor/ice/tickle/Tickle5.0v1.hqx).
E-mail: .
(1994-10-12)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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