TEASE

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does tease mean? 

• TEASE (noun)
  The noun TEASE has 3 senses:

1. someone given to teasing (as by mocking or stirring curiosity)

2. a seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men

3. the act of harassing someone playfully or maliciously (especially by ridicule); provoking someone with persistent annoyances

  Familiarity information: TEASE used as a noun is uncommon.

• TEASE (verb)
  The verb TEASE has 9 senses:

1. annoy persistently

2. harass with persistent criticism or carping

3. to arouse hope, desire, or curiosity without satisfying them

4. tear into pieces

5. raise the nap of (fabrics)

6. disentangle and raise the fibers of

7. separate the fibers of

8. mock or make fun of playfully

9. ruffle (one's hair) by combing the ends towards the scalp, for a full effect

  Familiarity information: TEASE used as a verb is familiar.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TEASE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone given to teasing (as by mocking or stirring curiosity)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

annoyer; tease; teaser; vexer

Hypernyms ("tease" is a kind of...):

persona non grata; unwelcome person (a person who for some reason is not wanted or welcome)

Derivation:

tease (harass with persistent criticism or carping)

tease (annoy persistently)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

coquette; flirt; minx; prickteaser; tease; vamp; vamper

Hypernyms ("tease" is a kind of...):

adult female; woman (an adult female person (as opposed to a man))

Derivation:

tease (mock or make fun of playfully)

tease (to arouse hope, desire, or curiosity without satisfying them)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The act of harassing someone playfully or maliciously (especially by ridicule); provoking someone with persistent annoyances

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

ribbing; tantalization; tease; teasing

Context example:

his ribbing was gentle but persistent

Hypernyms ("tease" is a kind of...):

harassment; molestation (the act of tormenting by continued persistent attacks and criticism)

Derivation:

tease (annoy persistently)

tease (harass with persistent criticism or carping)

• TEASE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they tease    ... he / she / it teases   
Past simple: teased   
Past participle: teased   
-ing form: teasing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Annoy persistently

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

badger; beleaguer; bug; pester; tease

Context example:

The children teased the boy because of his stammer

Hypernyms (to "tease" is one way to...):

bedevil; crucify; dun; frustrate; rag; torment (treat cruelly)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

Sam cannot tease Sue

Derivation:

tease (the act of harassing someone playfully or maliciously (especially by ridicule); provoking someone with persistent annoyances)

tease; teaser (someone given to teasing (as by mocking or stirring curiosity))

Sense 2

Meaning:

Harass with persistent criticism or carping

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

bait; cod; rag; rally; razz; ride; tantalise; tantalize; taunt; tease; twit

Context example:

His fellow workers razzed him when he wore a jacket and tie

Hypernyms (to "tease" is one way to...):

bemock; mock (treat with contempt)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "tease"):

barrack; flout; gibe; jeer; scoff (laugh at with contempt and derision)

banter; chaff; jolly; josh; kid (be silly or tease one another)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

teaser (someone given to teasing (as by mocking or stirring curiosity))

teasing (the act of harassing someone playfully or maliciously (especially by ridicule); provoking someone with persistent annoyances)

tease (someone given to teasing (as by mocking or stirring curiosity))

tease (the act of harassing someone playfully or maliciously (especially by ridicule); provoking someone with persistent annoyances)

Sense 3

Meaning:

To arouse hope, desire, or curiosity without satisfying them

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Context example:

She has a way of teasing men with her flirtatious behavior

Hypernyms (to "tease" is one way to...):

control; keep in line; manipulate (maintain influence over (others or oneself) skillfully, usually to one's advantage)

"Tease" entails doing...:

arouse; excite; sex; turn on; wind up (stimulate sexually)

disappoint; let down (fail to meet the hopes or expectations of)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

tease (a seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Tear into pieces

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

tease tissue for microscopic examinations

Hypernyms (to "tease" is one way to...):

rip up; shred; tear up (tear into shreds)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 5

Meaning:

Raise the nap of (fabrics)

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "tease" is one way to...):

change surface (undergo or cause to undergo a change in the surface)

"Tease" entails doing...:

brush (rub with a brush, or as if with a brush)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 6

Meaning:

Disentangle and raise the fibers of

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

loosen; tease; tease apart

Context example:

tease wool

Hypernyms (to "tease" is one way to...):

disentangle; straighten out; unsnarl (extricate from entanglement)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

teaser (a device for teasing wool)

teaser (a worker who teases wool)

Sense 7

Meaning:

Separate the fibers of

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

card; tease

Context example:

tease wool

Hypernyms (to "tease" is one way to...):

separate (divide into components or constituents)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 8

Meaning:

Mock or make fun of playfully

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Context example:

the flirting man teased the young woman

Hypernyms (to "tease" is one way to...):

blackguard; guy; jest at; laugh at; make fun; poke fun; rib; ridicule; roast (subject to laughter or ridicule)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

tease (a seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men)

teaser (someone given to teasing (as by mocking or stirring curiosity))

Sense 9

Meaning:

Ruffle (one's hair) by combing the ends towards the scalp, for a full effect

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Synonyms:

fluff; tease

Hypernyms (to "tease" is one way to...):

comb; comb out; disentangle (smoothen and neaten with or as with a comb)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They tease their hair

Derivation:

teasing (the act of removing tangles from you hair with a comb)

 Context examples 

“Because, instead of doing any good, she does nothing but tease me all day long.”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

She would hesitate, she would tease, she would condition, she would require a great deal, but she would finally accept.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I wanted to tease you a little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better than grief.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Spectra enable scientists to tease out details about what exoplanets are like, such as aspects of the temperature, composition and structure of their atmospheres.

(Sunsets on Titan reveal the complexity of hazy exoplanets, NASA)

She attracted him more than he liked—and Miss Bingley was uncivil to her, and more teasing than usual to himself.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I wondered at very much.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Since that is the case, I am sure I shall not tease you any further.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Why, it seems only yesterday that I was buttoning Amy's pinafore, and pulling your hair when you teased.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He was kept chained in a pen at the rear of the fort, and here Beauty Smith teased and irritated and drove him wild with petty torments.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

She told me, that that same evening William had teased her to let him wear a very valuable miniature that she possessed of your mother.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)