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Tease   /tiz/   Listen
Tease

noun
1.
Someone given to teasing (as by mocking or stirring curiosity).  Synonyms: annoyer, teaser, vexer.
2.
A seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men.  Synonyms: coquette, flirt, minx, prickteaser, vamp, vamper.
3.
The act of harassing someone playfully or maliciously (especially by ridicule); provoking someone with persistent annoyances.  Synonyms: ribbing, tantalization, teasing.  "His ribbing was gentle but persistent"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tease" Quotes from Famous Books



... was always as good as this," the child thought, "how I should love him." He did not even tease for a walk, a thing she was ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas

... tease the mind with the vague influence of description, as can the author, nor can he veil his products with the pleasing glamour of unreality. Without haze his work stands forth, bold facts in half-tone reproduction and printer's ink, fighting an uncertain fight ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... industriously disposed weave mats, and, whether lazy or not, they never allow their tongues and lungs a moment's rest. The slaves, male and female, draw water, cut fuel, or go to the distant plantations for yams and bananas; whilst the youngsters romp, play and tease the village idiot—there is one in almost every settlement. Briefly, the day is spent in idleness, except, as has been said, for a ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... say at what age I made my first kites, but I remember how my comrades used to tease me at our game of "pigeon flies." All the children gather round a table and the leader calls out "Pigeon Flies! Hen flies! Crow flies! Bee flies!" and so on; and at each call we were supposed to raise our fingers. Sometimes, however, he would call out "Dog flies! Fox flies!" or some other like ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... Edith, "I can not—I can not. You can not imagine how I dread to see the face of any one of them. I shall imagine that they know all; and I can not tell them. They will tease me to tell them my troubles, and it will only worry me. No, for me to stay here is impossible. I would go ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... cannot for my soul explain."—"Lord! Mr. Pickle," said Emilia, who had by this time recollected herself, "I never questioned your gallantry and taste; but I am resolved that you shall never have cause to exercise your talents at my expense; so that you tease yourself and me to no purpose. Come, Sophy, let us walk home again."—"Good God! madam," cried the lover, with great emotion, "why will you distract me with such barbarous indifference? Stay, dear ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... little children come from church and schoolroom, blind To suffering of lesser things, unfeeling and unkind; He heard them taunt the poor, and tease their furred and feathered kin; And no voice spake from home or church to tell them this was sin. He heard the cry of wounded things, the wasteful gun's report; He saw the morbid craze to kill, which Christian men ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... deal to say about rolling gaits, and bell-shaped trousers, and anchors and sea serpents tattooed on the arm. One of the boys scored a hit by slapping his dime down on the soda fountain marble and bellowing for rum and salt horse. Some one started to tease the little Morehouse girl about sailors having sweethearts in every port, but when they saw the look in her eyes they changed their mind, and stopped. It's funny how a girl of twenty is a woman, when a man ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... had a friend, Bessie Bates, who had a brother named Bob, a regular tease. Bessie was only eight, but Bob was eleven, and every one said that he ought to be at school in America. Then there were several children living in the mission compounds, but none of them were near Nelly. At one of the missions there were fifteen children among the four families ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper

... ears! Don't tease her. She doesn't like it. Dear thing! She's delicious to kiss—she's got such a soft nose. But she'll bolt as soon as look at you, and she's awfully hard to hold." Her fingers were twitching with the desire to ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... care and pain Where fiery passions get the rein, Or soft indulgence, joined with ease, Begets a thousand ills to tease: Where fair Religion, heavenly maid, Has slighted still her offered aid. Her matchless power the will subdues, And gives the judgment clearer views: Denies no source of real pleasure, And yields us ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte

... other at irregular angles with a deliciously impromptu effect? The palace had been built regardless of expense. It was originally laid out, Keith explained, by one of the old rulers of Nepenthe who, to tease his faithful subjects, simulated a frenzied devotion for the poetry and architecture of the Saracens, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... if from the burying-ground, destructful of her husband. There are several forms of making a choice, but we confine ourselves to the marriage.[32] In village-life the bridegroom is escorted to the girl's house by young women who tease him. The bridegroom presents presents to the bride, and receives a cow. The bridegroom takes the bride's hand, saying 'I take thy hand for weal' (Rig Veda, X. 85. 36), and leads her to a certain stone, on which she steps first with the right foot (toe). Then ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... an evening of boredom now that the men are gone] Did you ever in your life hear anyone rattle on so? Isn't he a tease? [She sits at the table]. Now that I think of it, dearie, don't you go encouraging him. I'm sure he's a ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... enquired why they gave him no companion? and received for answer, "That it would be wholly useless, as they were creatures who never bred out if their own country." But any reply serves any common Italian, who is little disposed to investigate matters; and if you tease him with too much ratiocination, is apt to cry out, "Cosa serve sosistieare cosi? ci fara andare tutti matti[V]." They have indeed so many external amusements in the mere face of the country, that one is better inclined to pardon them, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... without the faintest hesitation or shyness, 'we always thought you hated girls. I know I used to tease you when you came home for the first time, when you used to think of nothing ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... she enjoyed life like a bird, that her laugh was merry, that her heart was careless, and that her voice rang through the house—a sweet soprano voice—singing snatches of songs (now a street tune she had caught from a London organ, now an air from Handel or Mozart), or that she would sometimes tease her elder sister about her solemn and anxious looks; for Wynnie, the eldest, had to suffer for her grandmother's sins against her daughter, and came into the world with a troubled little heart, that was soon compelled to flee for refuge ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... her mother; adding, "You were aching to tease her, Jack, and I am glad she did not give ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard

... All he did for the present was to hint and tease. "It's the Inevitable!" he said, and asked himself why he should seek to arrest it. He had no faith in the System. Heavy Benson had. Benson of the slow thick-lidded antediluvian eye and loose-crumpled skin; Benson, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the same one as I saw in the pawnbroker's dahn the road,' said one of the men, to tease her. ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham

... The children would have played with him, but he thought they wished to tease him, and in his terror jumped into the milk-pail, so that the milk was spilled about the room. The good woman screamed and clapped her hands. He flew from there into the pan where the butter was kept, and thence into the meal-barrel, and out again, ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall

... roll of chickerberry lozengers, if you wont tease," whispered kind-hearted Billy, with a consoling pat on the crown of the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... any lying old gypsy woman; so she did not consider that there was any harm done, as she had also earned several dollars for the church. She had given a few of them bad fortunes, just to see if they would really believe such stuff, meaning to tease them over their credulity to-morrow, when she intended to declare her identity as ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... day. This is the inexactness of an ill-paid clerk. Yes, everything is badly arranged, nothing fits anything else, this old world is all warped, I take my stand on the opposition, everything goes awry; the universe is a tease. It's like children, those who want them have none, and those who don't want them have them. Total: I'm vexed. Besides, Laigle de Meaux, that bald-head, offends my sight. It humiliates me to think that I am of the same age as that baldy. However, I criticise, but I do ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... child, why do you tease the animals? Know you not that we cherish them in this hermitage as if they were our own children? In good sooth, you have a high spirit of your own, and are beginning already to do justice to the name Sarva-damana (All-taming), given ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... me, however, to meet him in the evening at Mr. (now Sir Robert) Chambers's in the Temple, where he accordingly came, though he continued to be very ill. Chambers, as is common on such occasions, prescribed various remedies to him. JOHNSON. (fretted by pain,) 'Pr'ythee don't tease me. Stay till I am well, and then you shall tell me how to cure myself.' He grew better, and talked with a noble enthusiasm of keeping up the representation of respectable families. His zeal on this subject was a circumstance in his character exceedingly remarkable, when it is considered that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... Bailey and they dearly loved to tease her. Strong, rugged, and used to activity, they could not be quiet long. Mrs. Bailey hitched a chair close to Pete and had learned much of his early history—for Pete felt that the least he could do was to answer her kindly questions—and ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... Formal permission to tease being conceded, she went that instant on the opposite tack, and began to tell him how she had missed him, and how sorry she had been anything should have occurred to vex their kind good friend. In short, Edouard spent a delightful day, for Rose took him one way to meet Josephine, who, she knew, ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... than I should make a mistake about you, father, when you begin to tease me with your horrid principles! Because, in spite of them, you are the chastest and most ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... of time. It won't take us long to drive home. And besides, we haven't congratulated the preacher yet. And there he comes now, down this way. See that girl draw back as if she were going to throw something at Mr. Warren. He must be a tease. Look at that old man laughing. Everybody wants to shake hands with the preacher. I think he did splendidly. He surprised me, ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... thought unbefitting the occasion, my talk scarcely innocent, simply because I was so innocent. I played endless child's tricks with my bridal veil, my wreath, my gown. Left alone that night in the room whither I had been conducted in state, I planned a piece of mischief to tease Victor. While I awaited his coming, my heart beat wildly, as it used to do when I was a child stealing into the drawing-room on the last day of the old year to catch a glimpse of the New Year's gifts ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... were asked to rise, I did not know it. When school was dismissed, I went out in a kind of stupor. A few of the white boys jeered me, saying: "Oh, you're a nigger too." I heard some black children say: "We knew he was colored." "Shiny" said to them: "Come along, don't tease him," and thereby won my undying gratitude. I hurried on as fast as I could, and had gone some distance before I perceived that "Red Head" was walking by my side. After a while he said to me: "Le' me carry your books." I gave him my strap without being able to answer. When we got ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... adds in the same place "when boys are wont to tease," in order that he might heighten their passionate temper by being stirred up by children. Of a continuous sound, he ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... he said, "but sperat et in saeva victus gladiatur arena, as the old Latin poet wisely remarks." The quotation was meant to tease her. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... wilds, Mackensie's savage lands With bickering strife inflame their furious bands; Atlantic isles and Europe's cultured shores Heap their vast wealth, exchange their growing stores, All arts inculcate, new discoveries plan, Tease and torment but school the race of man. While his own federal states, extending far, Calm their brave sons now breathing from the war, Unfold their harbors, spread their genial soil, And welcome freemen to ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... reputation for mystifying, and was noted for his power of taking people in at masquerades, which was greatly augmented by the almost unconscious falsity in which his whole nature was steeped.... He only wanted to tease me; but every word he uttered was a poison that ran through my veins. The blood rushed to my head. 'Ah! so that's it!' I said to myself; 'good! So there was reason for me to feel drawn into the garden! That shan't be so!' I cried aloud, and struck myself on the chest with my fist, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... of a fool, but out I went as eagerly as if there had been some hope. Miss Cullen began to tease me over my sudden access of energy, declaring that she was sure it was a pose for their benefit, or else due to a guilty conscience ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford

... run us from behind him plowing. We tease him, say what he'd say to the horse or mule. He'd lock us up in the smokehouse. We'd eat dried beef and go to sleep. He was a ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... silken ears. Sometimes, to be sure, he will open his mouth, as if he would bite, but when he gets your hand fairly in his jaws, he will scarce leave the print of his teeth upon it. He will swim, too, bravely, and bring ashore all the sticks you throw upon the water; and when you fling a stone to tease him, he swims round and round, and whines, and looks sorry, that he cannot ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... just, results of due contemplation, and of equal thought. You can talk a mob into anything; its feelings may be—usually are—on the whole, generous and right; but it has no foundation for them, no hold of them; you may tease or tickle it into any, at your pleasure; it thinks by infection, for the most part, catching an opinion like a cold, and there is nothing so little that it will not roar itself wild about, when the fit ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... "Please don't tease the animals," Grant returned, in the same impersonal tone which she had seen fit to employ—but his eyes turned for a sidelong glance at her, although he appeared to be watching the trout rise lazily to the insects skimming over the surface ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower

... dinner, not if I live to be a hundred—which is not unlikely, for I come of a long-lived race by my mother's side, and winds and waters have so toughened me that I ought to last with the best of my ancestors. There was a Latin tag Mr. Davies used to tease me with about the Feasts of the Gods. Feasts of the Gods, forsooth! They could not compare, I'll dare wager, with that repast in the Dolphin Room of the Noble Rose, on that crisp spring day when I and the ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... an ape dance; a painter copying a Hermes of Bacchus; a pensive damsel probably about to dispatch a secret message by the buxom servant-maid waiting there for it; a vendor of Cupids opening his cage full of little winged gods, who, as they escape, tease a sad and pensive woman standing near, in a thousand ways,—how many different subjects! But I have said nothing yet. The Pompeians especially excelled in fancy pictures. Everybody has seen those swarms of little ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... Hagar's eyes, and she held out her wrinkled hands imploringly. "Don't tease your old nurse, dearie; don't. I can't tell you these things now, and they could not make you any happier, child. Wait a little; the ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... fanned and rocked her great, big, darling, fat self in the strong rocker I always kept in the breezy angle of the porch for her. "Al is not old enough to have proved himself entirely, and from what I hear—" she paused with the big hearty smile that she always wears when she begins to tease or match-make, and she does them both most ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess

... progressing nicely." But under this item is a long poem clipped from a paper printed a week later,—Jeanette has counted the stanzas many times and knows there are seventeen, and each one ends with "when the angels brought Jeanette." Her father used to read the verses to her to tease her when she was in her teens, and once when she was in her twenties, and Jeanette had the lonely poet out to dinner one Sunday, she sat with him on the sofa in the library, looking at the old scrap-book. Their eyes fell upon the verses about the angels ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... authority, Agricola, one of the most earnest and truthful of investigators, still adhered to the belief that these gases in mines were manifestations of devils, and he specified two classes—one of malignant imps, who blow out the miners' lamps, and the other of friendly imps, who simply tease the workmen in various ways. He went so far as to say that one of these spirits in the Saxon mine of Annaberg destroyed twelve workmen at once by ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... didn't you?" said Master John Finley, cracking a whip over Letty's head. "Well, I'm glad you've come here at any rate; I haven't known what to do with myself all vacation. It will be prime fun, I'm thinking, to tease you, you little scared rabbit; and I'll tell you, to begin with, that my name is Mr. John Finley, and that I'm my mother's pet, and that whatever I say is pretty likely to be done in this house;—so you'd better be careful and ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... is a good wife; she is bountiful to her servants, firm in her friendships, charitable to the poor, and, I believe, never any sister better loved a brother, than she me: and yet she always loved to vex and tease me; and as I would bear a resentment longer than she, she'd be one moment the most provoking creature in the world, and the next would do any thing to be forgiven; and I have made her, when she was the aggressor, follow me all over ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... little fellow Who is such a wilful tease, That, when he's not in mischief, He is never at his ease: He dearly loves to frolic, And to play untimely jokes Upon his little sister, And ...
— The Nursery, September 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 3 • Various

... than the vague exactingness of egoism, and yet capable of impelling action as well as speech. "There really is nothing to care for much," said poor Rosamond inwardly, thinking of the family at Quallingham, who did not write to her; and that perhaps Tertius when he came home would tease her about expenses. She had already secretly disobeyed him by asking her father to help them, and he had ended decisively by saying, "I am more likely to want ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... energy, and I must take the teaching of him into my own hands till his school-days begin, in hopes of instilling them. The girlishness and timidity will be knocked out of him by the boys, I suppose; Harry is too kind and generous to do more than tease him moderately, and Norman will see that it does not go too far. It is a common saying that Tom and Mary made a mistake, that he is the girl, and she the boy, for she is a rough, merry creature, the noisiest in the house, always skirmishing with Harry in defence of Tom, and yet devoted to him, and ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... to think of Christmas and to tease grandpa and grandma to come and spend it with them, and of course papa and mamma teased too; so at last they promised, and the children said good-by to their pets and to Kate and May and Dick ...
— Dear Santa Claus • Various

... trials at home were not many. As for Kitty, she did not cease to wonder what had happened to Tip; she perhaps felt the difference more than any one else, for it had been the delight of his life to tease her. ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)

... well as I know the folly of it, and that 'tis but the jealous fancy of a girl. Faith, but I think my sister Cicely is as much in love with Mary Cavendish as I. 'Tis but—my sister Cicely, when she will tease me, tells me 'tis not I but you that Mary Cavendish hath set her ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... was a very mischievous little boy, and delighted to tease his sister Sarah who had a very quick temper. This only made him worse, and he was often punished for his rude behavior. One day he took his sister's doll, a present from her father, and was in the act of hiding it in a drawer when the door opened, and in walked his sister. He was ...
— The Skating Party and Other Stories • Unknown

... father. "But don't ever let Derry know that you know that it is! It seems to tease him a little. It seems to tease him a very great deal in fact. Being all rigged out like that. The illustrator is a friend of mine. He spent the Winter in Cuba three or four years ago. And he painted the ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... continuous mystery. At one moment there was the solid wall; the next, without touch of human hands, a door would fly open, giving a tantalizing glimpse of things to eat which he could never touch, for if he came near, the door would close again as mysteriously as it had opened. Dan loved to tease him with it, and Zeb, fearing magic, would take to his heels whenever this ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... than childish joy showing in her face, an older person would have seen that, but it was largely lost on Rolf. There was a tendency to blush when she laughed, a disposition to tease her "big brother," to tyrannize ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... it, Jerry. I didn't mean to eat so much of it, honest I didn't. I just wanted to tease you." He closed Jerry's fingers around ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell

... always walk to the Public Gardens. At one time, religious differences threatened to cloud this blissful vision of the future; but it was finally agreed that Carlotta should go to mass and confession as often as she liked, and should not tease Tonelli about his soul; while he, on his part, was not to speak ill of the pope except as a temporal prince, or of any of the priesthood except of the Jesuits when in company, in order to show that marriage ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells

... of this hidden drama; he never noticed his brother's love for Laurence. As to the girl herself, he liked to tease her about her coquetry,—for he confounded that odious defect with the natural desire to please; he was always mistaken in matters of feeling, taste, and the higher ethics. So, whenever this man of the middle-ages appeared on the scene, Laurence immediately made him, unknown to himself, ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac

... to talk about her, and to tease her about her lover. They asked her whether he was tall, handsome and rich. When was the wedding to be, and the christening? And often she ran away, to cry by herself, for these questions seemed to hurt her, like the prick of a pin, and in order to forget their jokes, she began ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... this sooty persecutor, do you, ma chere?"—and then, seeing that such a question pained and confused her, he said, "Hush now, ma petite fille; I shall not tease you any more." The confusion passed away, and her little olive face brightened, as does the moon when the ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... chapel moved to a lot on a side street in town within the week. However, when a hunter comes suddenly upon a Harpeth jaguar he is glad to use his best repeater and he is careful how he shoots, though if he is very skillful he may tease the lion aloft with a few nipping shots. I felt suddenly very strong for the fight that I knew was on, though the lion didn't possess that knowledge as yet. Deliberately I fired a preliminary bullet that seemed to graze father, though it ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... most of them is therefore already mended, and requires no further improvement. Here their lives are in safety. They are not liable to be impressed for soldiers, and forced to cut one another's Christian throats, as in the wars of their own countries. If some of the religious mad bigots, who now tease us with their silly petitions, have in a fit of blind zeal freed their slaves, it was not generosity, it was not humanity, that moved them to the action; it was from the conscious burthen of a load ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... slipped round to talk to her behind the scenes,' said Bob knowingly. 'Shall we go too, and tease him for a ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... that he could not forget. He was that way, John Wingfield, in his egoism. It was like flint, and his ambition and energy were without bounds. I remember he would say when teased that some day he should have more money than all the town together, and when he had money no one would dare to tease him. He had a remarkable gift of ingratiation with anyone who could be of service to him. My uncle, who was the head of the family, was fond of him; he saw the possibilities of success in this smart ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... "Not yet! Maybe he isn't coming here this summer." Mr. Blackbird liked to tease little Mr. Chippy. And generally when ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... boys tease, and my sisters think I must always do as they say because they are so much older, and sometimes I want to do ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard

... 'Don't tease your uncle with questions when he is thinking only for our good, my love,' said Mrs Nickleby. 'Nicholas, my dear, I ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... tears from the eyes. sadden; make unhappy &c. 828; plunge into sorrow, grieve, fash[obs3], afflict, distress; cut up, cut to the heart. displease, annoy, incommode, discompose, trouble, disquiet; faze, feaze[obs3], feeze (U[obs3].S.); disturb, cross, perplex, molest, tease, tire, irk, vex, mortify, wherret|, worry, plague, bother, pester, bore, pother, harass, harry, badger, heckle, bait, beset, infest, persecute, importune. wring, harrow, torment, torture; bullyrag; put to the rack, put to the question; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... clever of him. Lady Katherine said this Mr. Campion who was coming is in the same regiment, the 3d Life Guards. Perhaps when—— But there is no use my thinking about it, only somehow I am feeling so much better to-night—gay, and as if I did not mind being very poor—that I was obliged to tease Malcolm a little after dinner. I would play Patience, and never lifted ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn

... sweetly were those fair evenings spent,—the evenings of happy June! And then, as Maltravers suffered the children to tease him into talk about the wonders he had seen in the regions far away, how did the soft and social hues of his character unfold themselves! There is in all real genius so much latent playfulness of nature it almost seems as if genius never could grow old. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a pause, after which, in silence, the old man groped his way to the boy and knelt by him. "Hush, mon petit," he beseeched, "old Luc-Ange is a monster to tease you. Do not ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... a roll of chickerberry lozengers, if you won't tease," whispered kind-hearted Billy, with a consoling pat on the crown of ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... why not?" cried Mrs. Luttrell, indignantly. "But you say this to tease me only; being a Luttrell—the only Luttrell, indeed, save Hugo, that remains—you must marry and continue ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... she does. I like too well to show her that she is mistaken when she tells about things; but it makes me sorry afterward, because, in spite of myself, I like her better than I do anybody. I truly love her, papa; indeed, I do, but I like to tease her better than to help her, when she puts on airs about the very places where I have been and things I have done. Aunt Barbara speaks of her manners, and wishes I would "play with" Nelly Foster ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett

... is out. My dear madam, I am rich, as you know; I love you very heartily. With your help, I think I can make a figure in a larger world than this: and that, whatever my father, my grandson at least will be—but it is time enough to speak of him. What say you?—you—turn away. I'll not tease you,—it is not my way. I said before, ay or no; and your kindness so emboldens me that I say ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... preparing it the lamp went out, and there was no more oil in the house, nor any candles. What to do she did not know, for the broth must be made. Abdalla, seeing her very uneasy, said, "Do not fret and tease yourself, but go into the yard, and take some oil out ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... worst laws they could find, over which I would laugh and cry by turns. One Christmas morning I went into the office to show them, among other of my presents, a new coral necklace and bracelets. They all admired the jewelry and then began to tease me with hypothetical cases of future ownership. "Now," said Henry Bayard, "if in due time you should be my wife, those ornaments would be mine; I could take them and lock them up, and you could never wear them except with my permission. ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... will not say "Good-night," Wise man, for I am crazed, and so I know 'Tis good, and yet you'll grieve. I wish you both A bad night that will tease your wits away ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... it is wicked to keep slaves. Now you want to have one of your own. Oh! shocking, cousin,' said Mr. St. Clare, who loved to tease. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin, Young Folks' Edition • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Don't depreciate his ability. Don't talk discouragingly about his future. Don't let Miriam get down off the bank of the Nile, and wade out and upset the ark of bulrushes. Don't tease him. Brothers and sisters do not consider it any harm to tease. That spirit abroad in the family is one of the meanest and most devilish. There is a teasing that is pleasurable, and is only another form of innocent raillery, but that which ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... companion," returned Isabel, laughing. "Don't mention it pray," exclaimed Emily, "you have no idea what I endured coming down. Poor Charles, he must have been almost worried to death, she is such a horrid tease, and the old gentleman too, is an awful fidget. I think Arthur Barrington knew what he was about, when he refused to be of our party, and went on by express. Talking of Lady Ashton, how abominably she behaves to you. I was saying so to Harry the other day, and he really seemed quite hurt ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... not tease. But Rosy isn't like anybody else. She flies into a rage for just nothing, and it's always those people somehow that make one want to tease them. But, I say, Martha, I really do wonder ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth

... a rule, though it hasn't turned out badly for you. When you go back, you must stand up to the boys if they tease you, and show them you have some spirit. Don't get in a temper, you know; but ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... mother impatiently. "Do not tease us so. You must stay at home to take care of your little sister. Be a good girl this time, and when the rice is well grown we will all go together and harvest it. That will ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown

... from sentiment inspired the genial mood to tease. Women, having to encounter a male adept at the weapon for the purpose, must be either voluble or supportingly proud to keep the skin from shrinking: which is a commencement of the retrogression; and that has frequently been the beginning ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... as eager as Fred to find the place for which they were seeking, but they were more restrained in their manner and inclined to tease their enthusiastic comrade. ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay

... faced about. "You men are all alike," she cried, interrupting. "You tease and worry and torture a girl you pretend to care for, till 't is past endurance. I hate you, and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... with the bottle-shaped snout was as friendly and playful as most of its fellow dolphins. Too playful, Tom concluded, after vainly trying to tease it into chasing them. Instead of following, it would "tag" Tom or Mel quickly, then swim away, evidently expecting ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton

... not feigned, worked upon my feelings to such an extent that I would have been ashamed to take any advantage of it. At last she told me that nine o'clock had struck, and that if old Count Antonio found us as we were, he would tease her with his jokes. "When I see that man," she said, "I am afraid and I run away." Saying these words, she rose from the bed and left ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... see that Rusty Wren was somewhat of a tease. And as it usually happens with people who amuse themselves at the expense of others, there came a time when Rusty's teasing landed him ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey

... more questions," Hal remarked with a smile, for he was much pleased at the opportunity to tease the tall and usually super-wise youth in something of the latter's characteristic manner. "We can't answer all your questions, Cub, but we know there's a mystery about this fellow and his friends, and I suppose we'll have to wait for your ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield

... some day," he said, cheerfully. Then, to tease Bingo, he put his arms around his wife and hugged her,—which made the little dog burst into a volley of barks! Maurice laughed, but remembered that he was hungry and said again, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... Fenton. He died at Easthampstead, of indolence and inactivity; let it not be your fate, but use exercise. I hope the Duchess [of Queensberry] will take care of you in this respect, and either make you gallop after her, or tease you enough at home to serve instead ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... had never had a sister, and her brothers were neither of them near enough to her own age to interfere very much with her wishes and privileges. Moreover, a brother, though he may be the greatest tease in existence, is apt to be easier to get along with than a sister about one's own age. His pleasures and ambitions run in different directions from the girls; there is less clashing of interests. Besides this, Gypsy's ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... eighteen, when he had a bad fever. He is perfectly tractable, quite inoffensive, and thoroughly good-tempered. The only reason for moving him from his present home is that it is in a village, and the children tease and annoy him. I fancy the Lamonts ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... tease the older, to doubt her motives, to interrupt her meditations. It wants to play, while my older self is more seriously inclined. My younger self is only twelve years old. This is my real self. To my own mind I am still a little girl with short dresses and a bunch of curls. For some ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... quicker you got it done the more I should be willing to pay for it." He paused a moment. "And, Miss Fitch," he went on, "I don't care if you make it a little,—well,—a little soft. She deserves it, she's such a tease! Her name's Beatrice," he added. "We call her Trix, if that'll help ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... easily. "She knows as much about you as I do, and I am content. But mamma will be pleased, because she likes you. And Dick"—she laughed, and her eyes glowed with her love for the boy—"Dick will yell, and will tease me out of my life. But he will be glad, because he is so very fond of you. What do you do to make everybody like you so ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice



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