Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To excite by exposing something desirable that remains or is made difficult or impossible to obtain.
- transitive verb To be strongly attractive to; excite the senses or desire of.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To tease or torment by presenting something desirable to the view, and frustrating expectation by keeping it out of reach; excite expectations or hopes or fears in (a person) which will not be realized; tease; torment; vex. Also spelled
tantalise .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To tease or torment by presenting some good to the view and exciting desire, but continually frustrating the expectations by keeping that good out of reach; to tease; to torment.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive to
tease (someone) byoffering somethingdesirable but keeping it out ofreach - verb transitive to
bait (someone) by showing somethingdesirable but leaving themunsatisfied
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb harass with persistent criticism or carping
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Many words come from Greek roots, but the roots for "tantalize" run all the way to Greek myth about a misbehaving son of Zeus named Tantalus.
NPR Topics: News 2009
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The point is to tantalize the public and belittle the administration.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Dumping on The Obamas Earl Ofari Hutchinson 2012
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And James Bond is a stretch, though Brown is younger than Sean Connery and those JB initials do tantalize.
William Bradley: Brown in Command, Boxer Holding on, A Big Green Victory in the Making William Bradley 2010
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And James Bond is a stretch, though Brown is younger than Sean Connery and those JB initials do tantalize.
William Bradley: Brown in Command, Boxer Holding on, A Big Green Victory in the Making William Bradley 2010
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And James Bond is a stretch, though Brown is younger than Sean Connery and those JB initials do tantalize.
William Bradley: Brown in Command, Boxer Holding on, A Big Green Victory in the Making William Bradley 2010
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The point is to tantalize the public and belittle the administration.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Dumping on The Obamas Earl Ofari Hutchinson 2012
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Let's thwart those blood-thirsty savages, who, in the name of Islam, target innocents and tantalize the taliban-bashers.
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And James Bond is a stretch, though Brown is younger than Sean Connery and those JB initials do tantalize.
William Bradley: Brown in Command, Boxer Holding on, A Big Green Victory in the Making William Bradley 2010
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ECLIPSE can pounce on you like a ravenous jaguar, cloud your judgment like a dense fog, or tantalize your senses with kaleidoscopic color-tones.
Twilight Lexicon » Soundtrack Examiner Interviews Howard Shore 2010
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And James Bond is a stretch, though Brown is younger than Sean Connery and those JB initials do tantalize.
William Bradley: Brown in Command, Boxer Holding on, A Big Green Victory in the Making William Bradley 2010
jennarenn commented on the word tantalize
rolig, why is this on your surprisingly eponymous list?
February 4, 2009
sarra commented on the word tantalize
Click the little "OE" icon above and be enlightened!
February 4, 2009
rolig commented on the word tantalize
The short yet circuitous answer is: because some people are surprised to learn that this is an eponym.
The word comes from the Greek myth about Tantalus, whom the gods punished by tantalizing him for all eternity.
February 4, 2009
oroboros commented on the word tantalize
Also see anonyponymous.
November 18, 2009
rolig commented on the word tantalize
Oroboros, for anyone who loves etymology and morphology, that word is like fingernails on a blackboard. What is -nypo- supposed to mean?
November 18, 2009