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Glite Dictionary
😜 To mock playfully 😏 To tempt or arouse 🧶 To separate fibers 😜 A playful joke 😜 A mocker 💃 A flirt
to tease

to tease

39 3.5
To make someone feel excited or curious without telling them more
  • verb
  • /tiːz/
  • NSFW
translation icon : despertar
  • I like this suspense; it teases my wits and makes me wonder what will happen next.

So hey, so let's let's tease the audience.

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Examples

  • You get to tease him, make him work for it.

    Dirty Dancing (2017)

  • Oh, how you tease me with your sweet talk.

    The Ant Bully (2006)

  • Only later were we able to tease out the costs of the immune response.

    Academic text (2003)

  • You can't just tease me with that.

    The King of Staten Island (2020)

  • We come now to the most interesting task: teasing out the implications of the above review for social ethics.

    Academic text (1990)

  • Their ongoing study teases out the traits that high-performance teams share.

    Academic text (2005)

  • A young, awkward man, hopelessly in love with a woman beyond his reach who teases his affections.

    Water for Elephants (2011)

  • In About Rothko, Ashton describes the artist teasing his viewer into "a state of receptivity and inquiry."

    Academic text (2011)

  • Her comments were meant to tease him about his crush, but he took them seriously.

  • I couldn't help but tease her by pretending I forgot her birthday.

Synonyms

to titillate
vsto tease
  • NSFW
8 8.3

Make someone feel a little excited in a playful or sexual way

focuses on pleasurable or erotic excitement rather than creating unsatisfied desire
to tantalize
vsto tease
6 7.4

To show something nice to someone and keep it just out of reach

is about arousing hope while not meaning to satisfy that desire
to arouse interest
vsto tease
3.8

To make someone feel curious about something and want to know more

adds the idea of raising desire or hope without intending to satisfy it

Antonyms

to fulfill
  • US
265 2.8

To do what is required or promised

to satisfy
172 2.0

Make someone happy by meeting their need or wish

Phrasal Verbs

to tease apart
1 7.0

To gently pull apart fibers or threads to separate them

Compounds

cock tease
  • Offensive
1 9.9

A rude word for a person who shows sexual interest but refuses sex, often making others feel upset

How Tempting

to entice
61 4.9
to tantalize
6 7.4
to tease
  • NSFW
39 3.5
to intrigue
143 5.1
to interest
206 1.0

Surface Forms

tease infinitive
teased past
teased past participle
teasing present participle
teases third person singular

Etymology

The sense of tease meaning 'to arouse hope or curiosity' developed from the idea of 'pulling' someone's attention without giving it all, like showing a little but not the rest. So to tease in this sense is to excite interest or desire without satisfying it.