Tease \Tease\, n. One who teases or plagues. [Colloq.]
Tease \Tease\ (t[=e]z), v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Teased}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Teasing}.] [AS. t?san to pluck, tease; akin to OD. teesen, MHG. zeisen, Dan. t[ae]se, t[ae]sse. [root]58. Cf. {Touse}.] 1. To comb or card, as wool or flax. ``Teasing matted wool.'' --Wordsworth.
2. To stratch, as cloth, for the purpose of raising a nap; teasel.
3. (Anat.) To tear or separate into minute shreds, as with needles or similar instruments.
4. To vex with importunity or impertinence; to harass, annoy, disturb, or irritate by petty requests, or by jests and raillery; to plague. --Cowper.
He . . . suffered them to tease him into acts directly opposed to his strongest inclinations. --Macaulay.
Usage: {Tease}, {Vex}. To tease is literally to pull or scratch, and implies a prolonged annoyance in respect to little things, which is often more irritating, and harder to bear, than severe pain. Vex meant originally to seize and bear away hither and thither, and hence, to disturb; as, to vex the ocean with storms. This sense of the term now rarely occurs; but vex is still a stronger word than tease, denoting the disturbance or anger created by minor provocations, losses, disappointments, etc. We are teased by the buzzing of a fly in our eyes; we are vexed by the carelessness or stupidity of our servants.
Not by the force of carnal reason, But indefatigable teasing. --Hudibras.
In disappointments, where the affections have been strongly placed, and the expectations sanguine, particularly where the agency of others is concerned, sorrow may degenerate into vexation and chagrin. --Cogan.
{Tease tenon} (Joinery), a long tenon at the top of a post to receive two beams crossing each other one above the other.
In a sort of political tease for the formal endorsement Reagan will make tonight at a Republican Party dinner here, the president, accompanied by Bush, walked into the Cabinet Room to waiting GOP congressional leaders.
They keep open bank credit lines with one hand and tease new money out of institutional investors with the other.
He loved to tease his law clerks year after year by asking them what was the most important principle of constitutional law.
The Perot effort was just 'tease, tantalise, talk'.
They perm it and tease it, colour it and twist it.
Show him an unexploded bomb (scene one) and he will tease it lovingly until it explodes.
Staffers told the Post that Pappas, who was divorced, told one male staffer he would have to perform a strip tease in 1987 at an office retreat in Virginia.
Reagan delivered a political tease of sorts when he and Bush walked into the Cabinet Room to meet with GOP congressional leaders earlier Tuesday.
It needs more than that to justify a yield which, at 4.4 per cent, remains substantially below most of its peers. 3i 3i is in danger of becoming something of a tease.
He is prone to tease those of us who think his previous bill, and its accompanying sharply-focused official secrets act, was flawed.
But the rally turned into a tease, and many analysts aren't expecting runaway returns just yet.
Bhuller's choreography for Fall Like Rain is a tease.
The advice emphatically does not apply to newly-bought and planted goods. As roots cannot move, you must be sure to space them out and tease them to a full, straight length when setting them first into the ground.
Women tease each other about their ages and their graying hair as they sit under hair dryers and flip through timeworn magazines.
And we'd wrestle with them and tease them and tickle them under the armpits until they gave us the noise we wanted.' The mind boggles.