Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
😆 In a tickled way 🤏 With care
ticklishly

ticklishly

1 5.6
In a way that makes someone laugh when touched lightly
  • adverb
  • /ˈtɪk.lɪʃ.li/
: cosquillosamente
  • She squirmed ticklishly as the cat walked across her lap.

Examples

  • When he was tickled, he responded ticklishly with giggles and laughter.

  • A feather of a mourning dove drifted down and lit on Wentworth's nose and clung there, ticklishly.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • The child laughed ticklishly when her little brother poked her sides.

Surface Forms

ticklishly positive
ticklishlier comparative
ticklishliest superlative

Morphology

ticklishly = ticklish (transparent) = tickle + ish + ly

Formed from 'tickle' -> 'ticklish' -> 'ticklishly' by regular suffixation; the literal sense is directly derived.

Etymology

Ticklishly comes from tickle, an old English sound word for a light touch that makes you laugh, plus the endings -ish and -ly. So, in its first sense it means 'in a way that causes a tickling feeling or laughter'.