Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Sensitive to tickling.
- adjective Easily offended or upset; touchy.
- adjective Requiring skillful or tactful handling; delicate.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Easily moved or unbalanced; unsteady; unstable; uncertain; inconstant.
- Dubious; difficult; critical.
- Easily tickled: tickly; touchy: as, the sole of the foot is very ticklish; a ticklish person.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Sensible to slight touches; easily tickled.
- adjective Standing so as to be liable to totter and fall at the slightest touch; unfixed; easily affected; unstable.
- adjective Difficult; nice; critical.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Sensitive orsusceptible to beingtickled . - adjective
Touchy , sensitive, ordelicate .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective difficult to handle; requiring great tact
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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"Yes – there!" said Nancy, holding up Ellen's bare feet on one hand, while the fingers of the other secretly applied in ticklish fashion to the soles of them caused Ellen suddenly to start and scream.
The Wide, Wide World 1892
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If the letters were truly on the knuckles, that would assure the win...but I understand how 'ticklish' that could be.
This Just In: Plugs and Deliberations BikeSnobNYC 2009
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McNamara explained that the defoliants would be used initially in road clearing because the chemicals presented a "ticklish" problem and road clearance offered the least potential trouble.
Operation Ranch Hand Buckingham, William A. 1982
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On the "ticklish" setting of this everything depends.
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As for Spain, she was hard pressed; French and American emissaries had stirred up strife in her colonies; and affairs were most "ticklish" in San Domingo.
William Pitt and the Great War John Holland Rose 1898
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You can, if you make up your mind to it, prevent yourself from either wriggling, pulling your foot away, or giggling, when the sole of your foot is tickled; but if you happen to be at all "ticklish," it will take all the determination you have to do it, and some children are utterly unable to resist this impulse to squirm when tickled.
A Handbook of Health Woods Hutchinson 1896
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To the civilian mind, being sent forward purposely to draw the enemy's fire, looks like "ticklish" business.
Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines or, Following the Flag against the Moros 1895
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Like all little girls, she was very "ticklish," and when he dallied with his fingers about her plump neck, she dropped to the ground and kicked and rolled over to get away from him.
The Daughter of the Chieftain : the Story of an Indian Girl Edward Sylvester Ellis 1878
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Gunson confessed were "ticklish," as he called it, and where he always paused in his firm, quiet way to offer me his help.
To The West George Manville Fenn 1870
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Perhaps most of them would have been willing to acknowledge that it was rather "ticklish" business to lay out on a topsail yard at midnight in a gale of wind; and if their anxious mothers could have seen the boys at that moment, some of them might have fainted, and all wished them in a safer place.
Outward Bound Or, Young America Afloat Oliver Optic 1859
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