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Tickle   /tˈɪkəl/   Listen
Tickle

verb
(past & past part. tickled; pres. part. tickling)
1.
Touch (a body part) lightly so as to excite the surface nerves and cause uneasiness, laughter, or spasmodic movements.  Synonyms: titillate, vellicate.
2.
Feel sudden intense sensation or emotion.  Synonyms: thrill, vibrate.
3.
Touch or stroke lightly.



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"Tickle" Quotes from Famous Books



... did not do so. He merely marked time, deriving a grim amusement at the way his popularity grew as his currency dwindled. It was a game, enjoyable so long as it lasted. Egotistical he knew himself to be, but it was a conscious fault; to tickle his own vanity filled him with the same satisfaction a cat feels at having its back rubbed, and he excused himself by reasoning that his deceit harmed nobody. Meanwhile, with feline alertness he waited ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... is an object of horror and fright to every passer-by. It is her nature to look out for a companion, and she is said always to choose that member of a family whom she liked best during her lifetime. She will then come at night and embrace him and tickle him under the arms, making him laugh till he dies. Bhula or the wanderers are the shades of persons who have died an unnatural death, either having been murdered, hanged, or killed by a tiger. They all keep the scars of their respective wounds and one can imagine ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... "Tickle-tickle!" she cried, with some of that irrepressible animal spirit of hers, and leaning to brush his ear ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst

... of good solid Edifying Port, at honest George's, made a Night cheerful, and threw off Reserve. But this plaguy French Claret will not only cost us more Money but do us less good." Hearne had a poor opinion of "Captain Steele," and of "one Tickle: this Tickle is a pretender to poetry." He admits that, though "Queen's people are angry at the Spectator, and the common-room say 'tis silly dull stuff, men that are indifferent commend it highly, as it deserves." Some other satirist ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang

... kind of a kid, after all, Billy," said Chet Belding. "Even if you are full of tickle," and he grinned ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison

... through life. It's all very well to trifle with the little side-dishes at first, but there comes a time when you've got to quit fooling with the minced chicken, and the imitation lamb chops of this world, and settle down to plain, everyday, roast beef, medium. That other stuff may tickle your palate for a while, but sooner or later it will turn on you, and ruin your moral digestion. You stick to roast beef, medium. It may sound prosaic, and unimaginative and dry, but you'll find that it wears in the long run. You can take me over to the hotel ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... a shelf of stone, and lies with his sharp head poked in under it; or sometimes he bellies him into the mud, and only shows his back-ridge. And that is the time to spear him nicely, holding the fork very gingerly, and allowing for the bent of it, which comes to pass, I know not how, at the tickle of air and water. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... Thunderstorm fulmotondro. Thunderstruck fulmofrapa. Thursday jxauxdo. [Error in book: jauxdo] Thus tiel, tiamaniere. Thwart malhelpi. Thy cia, via. Thyme timiano. Tibia tibio. Tick bateti, frapeti. Ticket bileto. Tickle tikli. Ticklish tiklosentema. Tidal marmova. Tide, incoming alfluo. Tide, receding forfluo. Tidings sciigo. Tidiness malnegligxeco. Tidy malnegligxa. Tie ligi. Tie together (unite) kunligi. Tie (cravat) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... object is moved near the eyes, or a sound is suddenly heard. The well-known case of a bright light causing some persons to sneeze is even more curious; for nerve-force here radiates from certain nerve-cells in connection with the retina, to the sensory nerve-cells of the nose, causing it to tickle; and from these, to the cells which command the various respiratory muscles (the orbiculars included) which expel the air in so peculiar a manner that it ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... replied Jack, adding, 'Puff'll be as pleased as Punch. We've polished him off uncommon. That's just the sort of account to tickle the beggar. He'll go riding about the country, showing it to everybody, and ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... to gather men of metal throughout the city, till enough shall come to claim the Queen's release. For the cries of the women and unarmed weaklings clamoring under the walls of the fortress for her release, are but impotent wails to tickle the pride of those ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... replied the other, grinning; "and this will be a caution to you in future, how you confide a secret of consequence to a priest. I should as soon think of trusting a woman. Tickle the ears of their reverences with any idle nonsense you please: but tell them nothing you care to have repeated. I was once a disciple of Saint Peter ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... misbehaved, and Swartboy could not reach them with his long "voor-slag," Hendrik was ever ready to tickle them with his tough jambok; and, by this means, frighten them into good behaviour. Indeed, one of the boys was obliged to be at their ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... condole?' cried Hugh, striding forward with his man-of-the-wide-world air, and holding out his big hand. 'No doubt they're having a high old time at the club. Does it please them? Does it tickle them?' ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... man. . . . Your business is private, you say? . . . I am very sorry: we are all at sixes and sevens here, with every office crowded. But there's an empty saloon—one of those absurdities with which the management in old days sought to tickle the public taste. They are going to turn it into a ward in a couple of days, and that's why we have left it unoccupied. If that will do, and you'll come with me, we'll see if the electric light functions. I believe the fitters were at work ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... a quaint conceit, a merry tickle-brain of Fate," he asked of the leaping flames, after a still longer pause, "that this mountain of malmsey were once a delicate stripling with apple cheeks and a clean breath, smelling of civet, and as mad for love, I warrant you, as any ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... and Nell Gwynne are supposed to address letters to each other, exchanging reproaches in regard to the impropriety of their manner of life. Nell Gwynne accuses her correspondent of squandering her money and of gaming. "I am ashamed to think that a woman who had wit enough to tickle a Prince out of so fine an estate should at last prove such a fool as to be bubbled of it by a little spotted ivory and painted paper." "Peg Hughes," as she is called, replies, congratulating herself ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... all who'd contradict me— I've said I'd pay A pound a day To any one who kicked me— I've bribed with toys Great vulgar boys To utter something spiteful, But, bless you, no! They will be so Confoundedly politeful! In short, these aggravating lads They tickle my tastes, they feed my fads, They give me this and they give me that, And I've nothing whatever to ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert

... hungry children and clamour to be filled. And see you, my son, I have a secret of a certain broth whereof these lentils and these sweet herbs do so tickle their palates that to satisfy them is a hard matter—more especially Orson and Jenkyn—who being nigh cured of their hurts do eat like four men and vaunt my cooking full-mouthed, insomuch that I must needs grow heedful of ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... ridiculous—-of the incongruous. If a thing is a little too big or a little too small for the place it is intended to fill, for some occult reason we regard it as funny. The difference of a hair seems to tickle us, whereas a great difference does not produce that kind of effect ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... deprive you of the benefits of this carefully laid plan. In that case, and this is the last piece of advice, here is what you must do: "If either the company or indisposition of the weather binde you to sit it out, my counsell is then that you turne plain ape: take up a rush, and tickle the earnest eares of your fellow gallants to make other fooles fall a laughing; mewe at passionate speeches; blare at merrie; find fault with the musicke; whew at the children's action, whistle at ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... that's true, when was Bobadilla here? that rogue, that slave, that fencing Burgullion? I'll tickle ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson

... a pure fluke) that he must needs make another. If he had picked up a second cab-horse at thirty or forty pounds he could not have gone far wrong; but instead of that he must needs go to Tattersall's and give nearly fifty for a blood mare rejoicing in the name of "Tickle-me-Quick," described as being "the property of a gentleman," and said to have won ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall

... '01. DEAR JOE,—I'm not expecting anything but kicks for scoffing, and am expecting a diminution of my bread and butter by it, but if Livy will let me I will have my say. This nation is like all the others that have been spewed upon the earth—ready to shout for any cause that will tickle its vanity or fill its pocket. What a hell of a heaven it will be, when they get all these hypocrites ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... prettiness should be beyond home-printing. He doesn't want to dogmatise, but really can't help hinting! Scout's Head, by LANGBRIDGE, boys will like. JEROME K. JEROME'S Stage-Land, Which BERNARD PARTRIDGE illustrates, might tickle e'en the sage land Of Puritan Philistia at Clapham-Rise or Barnsbury. And now let us the memory of Christmas Cards and yarns bury In a right bowl of stingo, in the which the Baron cheerily Drinks to his readers heartily, sincerely, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various

... fall out among themselves, and make blunders, as was only natural, for Napoleon in his kindness had fed them on gold till they had grown as fat as butter, and they had no mind to march. Troubles came of this, for many of them stayed inactive in garrison towns in the rear, without attempting to tickle up the backs of the enemy behind us, and we were being driven back on France. But Napoleon comes back among us with fresh troops; conscripts they were, and famous conscripts too; he had put some thorough notions of discipline into them—the whelps were good to set their teeth in anybody. He had ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... At Indian Tickle there is a nice little church which was built by subscription and free labour the second year we came on the coast. There is one especially charming feature about this building. It stands in such a position that you can see it as you come from the north miles away from the harbour entrance, ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... boy twinkled. He went over to a corner and pulled a straw from his mother's broom. Then he returned to Unc' Billy and began to tickle Unc' Billy's nose. Mrs. Brown looked puzzled. She ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess

... my dear birdies,' is it, young man? 'Eat, dear birdies,' indeed! I'll tickle your breeches, and see if you say, 'Eat, dear birdies,' again in a hurry! And you've been idling at the schoolmaster's too, instead of coming here, ha'n't ye, hey? That's how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... of the firewood guillotine. See here again! Loo, loo, loo; Loo, loo, loo! And off her head comes! Now, a child. Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And off its head ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... Jerrold said of Australia: 'Tickle it with a hoe and it laughs with a harvest,'" said Dr. Allen, who still sat in the shaded dooryard, smoking his pipe. "I have an extra horse and saddle. Suppose you leave the family with Mrs. Rutledge and ride around with me a little this afternoon. I can show you how the land lies ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... pronounced it "classy." "Say," he said, "put a little life into the foreground and that would please me. It's what I'm seekin'. Put in an automobile meetin' one of these old-time prairie schooners—the old West sayin' howdy to the noo. That will tickle the trade." Mark, who was feeling weak and ill, consented wearily. He sketched in the proposed amendment and Hudson approved with one of his wrinkled smiles. He offered a small price, at which Arundel ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... a peculiarly exhilarating air. It came in everywhere, and seemed to tickle him out of the uneasy mood proper to one who has been cutting himself off for good and all from his early home. For the life of him he couldn't help feeling extraordinarily light and free. Edith—yes, there was Edith, but some day he would ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... "Vice Versa;" but, as George Eliot says, nothing is such a strain on the affections as a difference of taste in jokes. It is unsafe to recommend any writer as very funny. No man can ever tell how his neighbour will take a joke. But it may safely be said that authors who really tickle their students are extremely rare in England, except as writers for the stage, and surely "The Great Pink Pearl" might have made Timon of Athens shake his sides, or might convert a Veddah to the belief that "there is something to laugh ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... talent of a Barnum and the pride of a queen. Billy was the old horse who had pulled the family to church through the sand every Sunday since the children were babies, and Bess and Clover were white-starred, gentle-eyed cows, who let Gypsy pull their horns and tickle them with hay, and make pencil-marks on their white foreheads to her heart's content, and looked at Joy's strange face with great musing beautiful brown eyes. But Joy was afraid they would hook her, and she didn't like ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... of the glycerine of the word "motives," into fancying that all these tales are only the after colours and pictorial metaphors of sentimental piety. They are either plain truth or black lies; take your choice,—but don't tickle and treat yourselves with the prettiness or the grotesqueness of them, as if they were Anderssen's fairy tales. Either the King did carry the beggar on his back, or he didn't; either Godiva rode through Coventry, or she didn't; either the Earl ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin

... Stand By went down in a northeasterly gale off Dusty Reef of the False Frenchman, the last example of the art of Terry Lute of Out-of-the-Way Tickle perished with her. It was a great picture. This is an amazing thing to say. It doubtless challenges a superior incredulity. Yet the last example of the art of Terry Lute was a very great picture. Incredible? Not at all. It is merely astonishing. Other masters, and of all sorts, ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... reels in bacchanalian orgies; whether it appears in brilliant fancy dress illuminated by electric lights, or in the discreet light of a fashionable boudoir; whether it is clearly revealed or equivocal, perverted in one way or depraved in another; in all its forms its aim is to tickle, to excite, to seduce, to allure, by arousing lewdness and ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... little steamer's" whistle has just made a noise out of all proportion to its size. It reminded me of an English sparrow's blatant personality. We have turned into a "tickle," and around the bend ahead of us are a handful of tiny whitewashed cottages clinging to the sides of ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... side, it would be a poisonous weapon, which I would hurl one day surely at the head of Maupertius. It is therefore better it should live only in my remembrance, and be only an imaginary dagger, with which I will sometimes tickle the ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... a week your arm will begin to itch," said the doctor, "and it will tickle you, and then, after a bit, you will be vaccinated, and you can go ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis

... can't, you are too small. Here, catch hold of my paw! There you are!" grunted the Lion, when Ridgwell was seated safely. "You just fit nicely; all the children fit in here. Knock those rolled-up policemen's capes off, they annoy me every day when they put them there. They tickle me, and I can't scratch about with my ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... Baron of Denbigh, with great solemnity; herself (Elizabeth) helping to put on his ceremonial, he sitting on his knees before her, keeping a great gravity and a discreet behaviour; but she could not refrain from putting her hand to his neck to kittle (i.e., tickle) him, smilingly, the French Ambassador and I standing beside her."—MELVILLE'S ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... manhood recognized? Then Mr. Washington said that our emancipation and enfranchisement were untimely and a mistake; that we were not ready for it. (Naturally, Mr. Washington said no such thing.) What did he say that for but to tickle the palates of the white people? Oh, yes, he was shrewd. He will get many hundreds of dollars for his school ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... The color of the stuff, a crimson, as being a royal, loyal color, well became her fine skin and her dark curls and her bright, imperious eyes. She was followed by her serving-woman, Tiffany, a merry girl that Thoroughgood adored, and one that would in days gone over have been likely to tickle the easy whimsies of Halfman. Now he had no eyes, no thoughts, save for her ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... vainly magnifies his own success, Resents his fellow's, wishes it were less, Exults in his miscarriage if he fail, Deems his reward too great if he prevail, And labours to surpass him day and night, Less for improvement, than to tickle spite. The spur is powerful, and I grant its force; It pricks the genius forward in its course, Allows short time for play, and none for sloth, And felt alike by each, advances both, But judge where so much evil intervenes, The end, ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith

... that he bore the daily infliction of her tongue with a good-natured unconcern which would have been greatly to his credit had it not resulted from his confident expectation that an extra slice of cake or segment of pie would erelong tickle his palate in atonement for the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... advice of Suetonius Paulinus and Marius Celsus, so too in political matters he employed the talents of Galerius Trachalus.[200] Some people even thought they could recognize Trachalus' style of oratory, fluent and sonorous, well adapted to tickle the ears of the crowd: and as he was a popular pleader his style was well known. The crowd's loud shouts of applause were in the best style of flattery, excessive and insincere. Men vied with each other in their enthusiasm and prayers for his success, much ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... Spinal Cord Does.—If you tickle a person's foot when he is asleep, he will pull it up just as he would if he were awake, only not quite so quickly. What do you suppose makes the muscles of the leg contract when the brain is asleep and does not know that the foot is being tickled? And here is another curious fact. When you were ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg

... should be used. But, perhaps, he may have misunderstood the directions in some cases; and the most astonishing results were apt to follow his attempt to surprise his campmates with some new dish calculated to tickle ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie

... people are familiar with the best music. To them music is a language. Says Mayhew, in his elaborate work on the Rhine, in speaking of the free education in music in Germany: "To tickle the gustatory nerves with either dainty food or drink costs some money; but to be able to reproduce the harmonious combinations of a Beethoven or a Weber, or to make the air tremble melodiously with some sweet and simple ballad, or even to recall the sonorous solemnities of some prayerful ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... head, and continued: "But I will give the poisonous liar and blasphemer, King Heinz, once for all, a complete answer, and stop his mouth.... Therefore he thinks to hang on to the Pope and play the hypocrite before him.... Therefore they mutually caress and tickle each other like a pair of ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... sounding phrase that catches the ear. "For fools admire and like all things the more which they perceive to be concealed under involved language, and determine things to be true which can prettily tickle the ears and are varnished over with finely sounding phrase," says Lucretius. We imagine we understand when we do not; we do not really, truly, and wholly understand Emerson or any other man; we do not ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... of which eminent examples will occur to all. Then the whole spawn of so-called unmoral romances, which imagine a world where the sins of sense are unvisited by the penalties following, swift or slow, but inexorably sure, in the real world, are deadly poison: these do kill. The, novels that merely tickle our prejudices and lull our judgment, or that coddle our sensibilities or pamper our gross appetite for the marvellous, are not so fatal, but they are innutritious, and clog the soul with unwholesome vapors ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... little transaction between the two friends which I have been describing, Huckaback called upon Titmouse, and after greeting him rather cordially, told him that he had come to put him up to a trick upon the Saffron Hill people, that would tickle them into a little activity in his affairs. The trick was—the sending a letter to those gentlemen calculated to—but why attempt to characterize it? I have the original document lying before me, which was sent by Titmouse the very next ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... likely story! You'd better not say so. I rather s'pose you will if I give it to you. Look here, Ellen, you'd better mind how you behave; you're going to do just what I tell you. I know how to manage you; if you make any fuss I shall just tickle you finely," said Nancy, as she prepared a bed of coals, and set the cup of gruel on it to get hot. "I'll do it in no time at all, my young lady so you'd ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... having pointed out to him a peacock's feather lying on the ground, had, with one eye upon his unobservant parent, removed the complicated coverings sheltering Miss Helvetia Appleyard from the world, and anticipating by a quarter of a century the prime enjoyment of British youth, had set to work to tickle that lady on the nose. Miss Helvetia Appleyard awakened, did precisely what the tickled British maiden of to- day may be relied upon to do under corresponding circumstances: she first of all took swift and comprehensive survey of the male thing behind the feather. Had he been displeasing in her ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome

... tickle subjects to meddle with, even in the most private company. The nation was in a state of terror against France, and against any at home who might be supposed to sympathise with the enormities she had just been committing. The oppressive act against ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... carries a long switch; and with her it is no mere emblem of authority, for she employs it pretty frequently on the backs of the urchins. You have seen Mammy Quasheba, and I dare say she appears to you to be a very amiable old dame, for she takes care only to tickle her little charges when you or Mrs ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... vain." "A soldier and fear — how can those two things go together?" he answered; "thou canst put me to the proof." "Very well, then," answered the man, "look behind thee." The soldier turned round, and saw a large bear, which came growling towards him. "Oho!" cried the soldier, "I will tickle thy nose for thee, so that thou shalt soon lose thy fancy for growling," and he aimed at the bear and shot it through the muzzle; it fell down and never stirred again. "I see quite well," said the stranger, "that thou art not wanting in courage, but there ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... bar of iron in his hand, a leather apron on, and a broad grin upon his countenance, was coming out of the door as Jan entered. The affair seemed to tickle Peckaby's fancy as much as it tickled Jan's. He touched his hair. "Please, sir, couldn't you give her a dose of jalap, or something comforting o' that sort, to bring her to?" asked he, pointing with his thumb indoors, as he stamped across the road ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... corruption of the doctrine of repentance." How so? Because the austerity of the Canons in vogue at that time is particularly obnoxious to this plausible sect which, better fitted for dining-rooms than for churches, is wont to tickle voluptuous ears and to sew cushions on every arm (Ezech. xiii. 18). Take the next age, what offence has that committed? Chrysostom and those Fathers, forsooth, have "foully obscured the justice of faith." Gregory Nazianzen whom the ancients called eminently "the Theologian," is in the judgment ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... two of Mr. Eddy's kites flying in tandem broke away, and started out to sea, the dangling line passing over a moored coal barge on which a man was working. Feeling something tickle his neck, the man put up his hand quickly and touched the kite-cord. Greatly surprised, he seized the cord and made it fast; and he was not at all disposed to give up the kites when Mr. Eddy claimed them. There is no property, indeed, ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various

... "For," as he justly adds, "the art of writing is not learnt all at once."[158] The modern critic must be content to accept the same verdict; only a generation so in love as this was with anything that could tickle its intellectual curiousness, would have found in the first of the two Discourses that combination of speculative and literary merit which was imputed to Rousseau on the strength of it, and which at once brought him into a place among the notables of an age that was full of them.[159] We ought ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... ought to remind him of, and therefore that it was bad. If the gallery could be bequeathed to the nation, something might, perhaps, be gained, but the nation would complain of the draughts and the absence of chairs. But no matter. In another world we shall see certain gentlemen set to tickle the backs of Circe's swine through all eternity. Also, they will have to ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... eyes? Hath not a Jew hands; Organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, Subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, Warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter, As a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? if you poison us Do we not die? and if you wrong us shall we not revenge? The villainy you teach me, I ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... the hook when I come in, and whenever I gets a glimpse of him durin' the day he has his coat off and is makin' a noise like the busy bee. At this it takes some time before he makes an impression on Miller; but fin'lly Morty comes out to me with a bulletin that seems to tickle him all over. ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... surprise me in bed. I would pretend to be asleep, and he would pull my beard and shout in my ear. I feigned great alarm and threatened to be avenged. From this arose fights among the counterpanes, entrenchments behind the pillows. In sign of victory I would tickle him, and then he shuddered, giving vent to the frank and involuntary outburst of laughter of happy childhood. He buried his head between his two shoulders like a tortoise withdrawing into his shell, and threatened me with his plump rosy foot. The skin of his heel was so delicate ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... Miki's responsive whine, the crying of one child for another. Neewa's mother did not move. She made no sound. And he could see nothing of her but her black and furry skin—without head, without feet, without the big, bald paws he had loved to tickle, and the ears he had loved to nip. There was nothing of her but the patch of black skin—and ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... inform and irregular way of speaking, a popular jargon, a proceeding without definition, division, conclusion, perplexed like that Amafanius and Rabirius.—[Cicero, Acad., i. 2.]—I can neither please nor delight, nor even tickle my readers: the best story in the world is spoiled by my handling, and becomes flat; I cannot speak but in rough earnest, and am totally unprovided of that facility which I observe in many of my acquaintance, of entertaining the first comers and keeping a whole company in breath, or taking ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... — N. itching, pruritis [Med.] &c v.; titillation, formication^, aura; stereognosis^. V. itch, tingle, creep, thrill, sting; prick, prickle; tickle, titillate. Adj. itching ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... night would rise from all those wet leagues of labored field that great soft bubbling chorus which seems the very voice of the soil itself,—the chant of the frogs. And O-Toyo would interpret its syllables to the child: Me kayui! me kayui! "Mine eyes tickle; I want ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... served the Lord in the holy ministry, and particularly in that post and character of the king's chaplain, his ambition was to have God's favour, rather than the favour of great men, and studied more to profit and edify their souls, than to tickle their fancy, as some court-parasites in their sermons do: One instance whereof was, that being called to preach before the parliament, where many rulers were present, he preached from John iii. 10. Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things? when ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... become a solemn sporting proposition—solemn enough in its heavy responsibilities and the magnitude of the stakes to satisfy our deepest religious longings; sporty enough to tickle the fancy of a baseball fan or an explorer in darkest Borneo. We can play the game or refuse to play it. At present most of human organization, governmental, educational, social, and religious, is directed, as it always has ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson

... straggling got bad you and I might fall a long way behind and fire our pistols, so as to give the impression Kurds are in pursuit. That would tickle up the rear-end to ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... the middle of a broad field. He went on slowly and soon fell of weakness and lay for a time with his eyes closed. He could hear the dull thunder of approaching hoofs; then he felt a silky muzzle touching his cheek and the tickle of a horse's mane. He looked up at the animal, feeling her face and neck. "You feel like Phyllis, but you are not Phyllis—you are all white," said the young man, as he patted her muzzle. He could hear other horses coming, ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... comes abroad into the fields, hee will play the countrey gentleman as truly, as before the knight in turnament. If the game be up once, and the hounds in chase, you shall see how he will pricke up his eares streight, and tickle at the sport as much as his rider shall, and laugh so loud, that if there be many of them, they will even drowne the rurall harmony of the dogges. When he travels, of all innes he loves best the signe of the ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... Irishman, "you've but felt the tickle of the spur; when I drive it in, you'll yell like a whipped kid. Always you play into me hands, McTee. Now when you see Kate, you'll feel me grin in the ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand

... mouth in the Liffey, you nasty tickle pitcher; after all the bad words you speak, it ought to be filthier than your face, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... for me—that's only for you land-lubbers," said Per Kofod. "For look you now, they're like so many little lambs whose ears you've got to tickle. And then it all comes back to you in the nights when you take the dog-watch alone; you've told her lies, or you promised to come back again when she undid her bodice.... And in the end there she is, planted, and goin' to have a kid! It don't do. A sailor ought ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... chirping along as he perceived the danger-point passed. "I'm a theorist, and a real theorist doesn't have one theory; he has dozens. Let me see; let me think, reflect, cogitate, tickle the thinker. Best way is to start at the A, B, C—first principles, all that sort of thing. Supposin', supposin' you come into the room with that hat on—it's a bum hat, by the way—and some ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... believed him to be under the protection of the Great Spirit, and when they heard him wandering through the woods, sometimes weeping like a peevish child because some little plan had gone awry, more often laughing uproariously at that which would tickle the fancy of a seven-year-old, they made mad haste to ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... time to finish he lay with his nose on the grass; he was lifted in the air and thrown down with force—father had thrown him high up with his knees, according to his old habit. Yura felt offended; but father, entirely ignoring his anger, began to tickle him under his armpits, so that Yura had to laugh against his will; and then father picked him up like a little pig by the legs and carried him to the terrace. ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... his eyes with his hands and mused for a few minutes; then he finally said, "Mr. Sawyer, I have got an idea. That fellow, Strout, thinks he runs this town, and it would tickle him to death if he thought he made things uncomfortable for you. Then, again, I happen to know that he is sweet on Huldy Mason himself, and he would do all he could to widen the breach between 'Zeke and her. You see, he isn't but forty himself, and he wouldn't mind the difference in ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... treated content and form separately. But I am keenly aware that the divorce of the two is what has made our stories for children so unsatisfactory. We have good ideas told without charm of design; and we have meaningless patterns which tickle the ear for the moment but fade because they spring from no real thought. Literature is only achieved when the thought pattern and the language pattern exactly fit. A refrain for the mere sake of recurrent jingle, that has no genuine no essential recurrence in the thought, is a trick. ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell

... the presence of the vastness. Let a controversy begin in a smoking-room anywhere, about free-will or God's omniscience, or good and evil, and see how everyone in the place pricks up his ears. Philosophy's results concern us all most vitally, and philosophy's queerest arguments tickle agreeably our sense of ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... he'd pet 'n' paw the moke; He'd tickle him, 'n' flatter him, 'n' try him with a joke; 'N' presently that neddy sobers up, 'n' sez "Ive course, Since you puts it that way, cobber, I ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... reverend lad Maks faces to tickle the mob; He rails at our mountebank squad, Its rivalship ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... up!" laughed Kent. "Didn't I tickle the soles of your feet? Didn't I pinch you? What more do ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... delighted with his appearance and the way he behaved when dressed up, that they called all the rest of the circus people to come and look. Of course they laughed and praised and petted Billy, until he was nearly bursting with conceit and they all agreed that it would tickle the children most to death to see how solemn and straight a goat ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery

... them rosy, merry, glorious, and bespattered, one waving a couple of rabbits, and the other of pheasants, and trying to tickle Theodore's cheeks with the long tails of the latter, of course frightening him ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... both ways. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. Do you s'pose the nose could afford to work free gratis for the stomach, with plenty to do an' nothin' to git? No, Sir, not by a jugful! People that want favors mustn't be stingy in givin' on 'em. It's on the scratch-my-back-an'-I'll-tickle-your-elbow system. The stomach's got to keep up his eend o' the rope, or he'll jest go under, sure. One good turn deserves another, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... so bent with age that he cannot see, talk, or walk, tickle him in the ribs and that will make him young again; and, my Brother, carry him here yourself lest one of the slaves should let him fall and he ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole

... could not follow the sense. "Waste no more time talking their German gibberish," said he; "take out thy knife and tickle his fat ribs." ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... doomed to failure; even had zu Pfeiffer been able to speak the dialect as well as Birnier he would never have accomplished it. Yet he tried the impossible. The answer was invariably a mask of ox-like stupidity or the retort that he, being a mighty magician, must needs know that he did but "tickle their feet"! At length, irritated by this persistence, he had Sakamata put to the torture and had for his pains a story in which the idol as the first man was the father of the tribe whom the people believed to have been eaten ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... far short of May. Here's taught to keep all sorts of flesh in date, All sorts of Fish, if you will marinate; To candy, to preserve, to souce, to pickle, To make rare Sauces, both to please, and tickle The pretty Ladies palats with delight; Both how to glut, and gain an Appetite. The Fritter, Pancake, Mushroom; with all these, The curious Caudle made of Ambergriese. He is so universal, he'l not miss, The Pudding, nor Bolonian Sausages. Italian, Spaniard, French, he ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May

... rank we seek by those who are in possession of it." Make yourself out to be an aristocrat, he means. "Canvass them, and cotton to them. Make them believe that in matters of politics you have always been with the aristocracy, never with the mob;" that if "you have at all spoken a word in public to tickle the people, you have done so for the sake of gaining Pompey." As to this, it is necessary to understand Pompey's peculiar popularity at the moment, both with the Liberals and with the Conservatives. "Above all, see that you ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... a sight on us, the childern do — they knew them mottoes would highly tickle their pa and me. And they did seem to kinder invigorate up all the folks that come to ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley

... now, even as the blackmailer bit a cartridge for the next shot. A victim who had only pistols, and at rifle range, and with not a pebble for shelter from the flank bombardment—it was assuredly a situation to tickle ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... roared Copper-down Hicks. "That's one on you! The madam, here, sees your brand new togs and thinks you tickle the green ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill

... filthy plain. Through shells and bombs and bullets and all— Only this time—I do not crawl. I run like a man wot's missing a train, Or a tom-cat caught in a plump of rain. I hear the spit of a quick-fire gun Tickle my heels, but ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service

... is doubtless your son," said Piccolissima to the insect which had taken his place on her neck, in order that the warmth might help digestion, without asking whether or not his nails might tickle the little girl. ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen

... life for the loot of it, Rainey," Lund declared. "Food an' drink to tickle my tongue an' fill my belly, the woman I happen to want, an' bein' able to buy ennything I set my fancy on. The answer to that is Gold. With it you can buy most enny thing. Not all wimmen, I'll grant you that. Not the kind of woman I'd want for a steady mate. Thet's one thing ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... pound a day To any one who kicked me - I've bribed with toys Great vulgar boys To utter something spiteful, But, bless you, no! They WILL be so Confoundedly politeful! In short, these aggravating lads, They tickle my tastes, they feed my fads, They give me this and they give me that, And I've ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... Don't tickle the girl in her sleep, Don't cause so much beauty to sigh; If she frown, all the Graces will weep; If she weep, half the ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent

... quick and quicker to learn— Bold and bolder to dare: He danced the dread Kloo-Kwallie Dance To tickle Itswoot the Bear! ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... Mandarin owned a wombat That grew so exceedingly fat That, when it would laugh 'Twould most break in half, And tickle the soul ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... hand covered with blood. Still he came back to his favourite place, and I tried again, after giving my friends caution to be on the look out. This time I was successful, I put my hand gently under his belly, and by a tickle, secured the rascal, by thrusting the fore-finger and thumb of my right hand in his gills. I got him on to land, my friends ran about in exstacy, and I think I never saw a finer trout than he proved to be—real Eden. We gave ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various

... incivility: Let what is graceless, discompos'd, and rude, With sweetness, smoothness, softness, be endu'd. Teach it to blush, to curtsy, lisp, and show Demure, but yet full of temptation, too. Numbers ne'er tickle, or but lightly please, Unless they have some wanton carriages. This if ye do, each piece will here be good, And graceful made by ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... Mrs. Poultney Masters making a speech in favor of giving girls night-keys, or of some empty-headed society dame being caught in a roadhouse with another lady's hubby. Spice: that's what we're looking for. Something to tickle their jaded palates. And they despise us when we break our necks or our hearts to get it ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Calvin, and the truth is not in thee; ye are bloody minded wretches, and your fury is the only sign of your religion, as the steeple is to the church; your organs are the prophane tinkling of the cimbals of Satan, that tickle the ears ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... thunder of authority, the lightning of royalty," she said; and then, thinking she had done enough to placate his passion, she turned to whisper to Lysidice, "Let us tickle this fool like ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... shoot your nest to bits for fear of shooting the rooks'-nests too; and there's abundance of insect food on the spot. The nest itself was mostly feathery stuff, though I remember a piece of pink paper, which used to tickle me. I suppose the colour of it took the old birds' fancy. Of course the nest was distinct from the casing. That was the usual straw. I think it is the casing of sparrows'-nests that you ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... bulwarks: 'For such things as these,' the supplication continues, 'we, their books, are cast out of their hearts and regarded as useless lumber, except some few worthless tracts, from which they still pick out a mixture of rant and nonsense, more to tickle the ears of their audience than to assuage any ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... these more common names, Dr. Prior mentions the following: "Herb Trinity, Three faces under a hood, Fancy, Flamy,[197:1] Kiss me, Cull me or Cuddle me to you, Tickle my fancy, Kiss me ere I rise, Jump up and kiss me, Kiss me at the garden gate, Pink of my John, and several more of the same ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... me to lie on my back on the floor and pushed Ernestine on the top of me. My pego entered her con. Harriet began to tickle our genitals when we were thus joined while George entered her en cul at the same time passing his hand in front of her and titillating her clitoris with his finger. With her unoccupied hand, Harriet took possession of Isabelle's con and forced two fingers in it—and in this ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival

... my opinion, a just maxim, that our deliberations can receive very little assistance from merriment and ridicule, and that truth is seldom discovered by those who are chiefly solicitous to start a jest. To convince the understanding, and to tickle the fancy, are purposes very different, and must be promoted by different means; nor is he always to imagine himself superiour in the dispute, who is applauded with the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... mid-wife take oil of lilies, marjoram and bay leaves, and dissolve two grains of civet in them, and the same quantity of musk, and at the moment of the paroxysm let her dip her finger into the mixture and put it into the neck of the womb, and tickle and rub it ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... turquoise, with a gorgeous canopy supported over his head. Just as he reached the bridge the air became full of the music of singing birds, twenty-five hundred of them at that moment released, and all fluttering, darting, singing amid the gorgeous scene to tickle the ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life. The Dullards came in with Adam, and being both numerous and sturdy have overrun the habitable world. The secret of their power is their insensibility to blows; tickle them with a bludgeon and they laugh with a platitude. The Dullards came originally from Boeotia, whence they were driven by stress of starvation, their dullness having blighted the crops. For some centuries they ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... hope you've enjoyed our little joke. We don't want to carry it too far. Kidnappers! Well, wouldn't it tickle your uncle? My name's Rhinegelder, and I'm a nephew of Chauncey Depew. My friend's a second cousin of the editor of Puck. So you can see. We are down South enjoying ourselves in our humorous way. Now, there's two quarts of cognac to open yet, ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry

... not where they're found. Rights of the masses—progress!—bah! Words that tickle and sound; But claiming to rule o'er "practical men" Is ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... "Suppose we tickle them up with the pea-shooter first," suggested Lickford. "Mind how you go over the chairs, Cash," added he, as that hero in the dark got entangled in the second line ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... sinking a bit wearily into the Morris chair. "They pain; just like rheumatism or growing pain. And they tickle too, Dolly; they tickle all the time." He crossed his arms, raising a hand to each shoulder, and rubbed them with a shiver of delight. ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper

... the will good and pure, is wasted in the top story of the temple of man in idle speculations about external and worthless things, in scientific quarrels and dogmatic disputations, which have usually no other object but to tickle personal vanity and to give to ignorance an external coat of learning. Many of our modern scientific authorities resemble ants, which crawl over a leaf which fell from a tree: they know all about the veins and cells of that leaf, but they know ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various



Words linked to "Tickle" :   titillate, touching, skin sensation, excite, itch, vibrate, fondle, stir, shake up, cutaneous sensation, shake, touch, caress, haptic sensation, stimulate, vellicate



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