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tease

verb
/tiːz/

Etymology

From Middle English tesen, from Old English tǣsan (“to tease”), from Proto-West Germanic *taisijan (“to separate, tug, shred”).

  1. inherited from *taisijan✻ — “to separate, tug, shred”
  2. inherited from tǣsan — “to tease”
  3. inherited from tesen

Definitions

  1. To separate the fibres of (a fibrous material).

  2. To comb (originally with teasels) so that the fibres all lie in one direction.

  3. To backcomb.

  4. ›+ 9 more definitions

    1. To poke fun at, either cruelly or affectionately in a playful way.

      • The beast in the past has done horrible stuff / And his victims were left quite displeased / No one knows what he's so angry about / Maybe once in third grade he was teased

    2. To provoke or disturb

      To provoke or disturb; to annoy.

      • Not by the force of carnal reason, / But indefatigable teasing.
      • I am myself, the sweetest temper'd man alive, and hate a teasing temper; and so I tell her a hundred Times a day—
      • He[…]suffered them to tease him into acts directly opposed to his strongest inclinations.

    3. To manipulate or influence the behavior of, especially by repeated acts of irritation.

    4. To entice, tempt.

      • [H]ere comes my Helpmate!—She appears in great good humour——how happy I should be if I could teaze her into loving me tho' but a little——

    5. To deliberately arouse someone sexually with no intention of satisfying that arousal.

      • My favorite fantasy is being tied down and teased and teased.

    6. To show as forthcoming, in the manner of a teaser.

    7. One who teases.

    8. A single act of teasing.

    9. One who deliberately arouses others (usually men) sexually with no intention of…

      One who deliberately arouses others (usually men) sexually with no intention of satisfying that arousal.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at tease. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01tease02fibrous03fibre04twisted05twining06motion07show08confer09collogue10coax

A definitional loop anchored at tease. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

10 hops · closes at tease

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA