What does "tickle" mean?

1. (to touch and cause laughter) to touch someone lightly on a sensitive part of their body to make them laugh or twitch. 2. (to feel itchy) to have a light, tingling, or itchy feeling on your skin or in your throat. 3. (to amuse or please) to make someone feel amused or to interest them. 4. (the act or sensation) the act of tickling someone, or the feeling you get when you are tickled.

tickle — meaning, definition & examples

Word

01to touch and cause laughter

B1 · Intermediate

v. to touch someone lightly on a sensitive part of their body to make them laugh or twitch.

v. to touch a person or animal lightly in a sensitive area, typically inducing involuntary laughter or spasmodic movement.

“The children were laughing loudly because their father was tickling their feet.”

“The toddler collapsed into fits of giggles as his mother began to tickle his ribs during their morning play session.”

Synonyms

titillate

02to feel itchy

B2 · Upper Intermediate

v. to have a light, tingling, or itchy feeling on your skin or in your throat.

v. to experience a tingling or mildly irritating sensation on the skin or a mucous membrane.

“My throat started to tickle, and I knew I was about to cough.”

“A stray blade of grass began to tickle his ankle, distracting him from the book he was trying to read.”

Synonyms

tingle itch

03to amuse or please

B2 · Upper Intermediate Informal

v. to make someone feel amused or to interest them.

v. to please, amuse, or gratify someone's curiosity or sense of humour.

“The idea of moving to a tropical island really tickled his fancy.”

“The comedian's dry wit seemed to tickle the audience, though the critics remained largely unimpressed by the performance.”

Synonyms

amuse delightgratify

Antonyms

bore annoy

04the act or sensation

B1 · Intermediate Countable noun

n. the act of tickling someone, or the feeling you get when you are tickled.

n. an instance of tickling or the resulting tingling sensation.

“She felt a slight tickle in her nose just before she sneezed.”

“The persistent tickle at the back of his throat suggested that the dusty archives were affecting his allergies.”

Synonyms

tingle itch

The verb is transitive and usually takes a person or a specific body part as its direct object.

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, from a metathetic alteration of Middle English kitelen ("to tickle"; see kittle). Both are ultimately sound-symbolic.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.