TANTALIZE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does tantalize mean? 

• TANTALIZE (verb)
  The verb TANTALIZE has 1 sense:

1. harass with persistent criticism or carping

  Familiarity information: TANTALIZE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TANTALIZE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they tantalize    ... he / she / it tantalizes   
Past simple: tantalized   
Past participle: tantalized   
-ing form: tantalizing   

Sense 1

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 "tantalize" is one way to...):

bemock; mock (treat with contempt)

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

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:

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

tantalizer (someone who tantalizes; a tormentor who offers something desirable but keeps it just out of reach)

Tantalus ((Greek mythology) a wicked king and son of Zeus; condemned in Hades to stand in water that receded when he tried to drink and beneath fruit that receded when he reached for it)

 Context examples 

The plumes provide a tantalizing opportunity to gather samples originating from under the surface without having to land or drill through the ice.

(Possible Water Plumes on Jupiter's Moon Europa, NASA)

Using NASA’s Hubble and Kepler space telescopes, astronomers have uncovered tantalizing evidence of what could be the first discovery of a moon orbiting a planet outside our solar system.

(Astronomers Find First Evidence of Possible Moon Outside Our Solar System, NASA)

Remains of bizarre relatives of early crocodiles, the oldest evidence for "insect farming," and tantalizing clues about the early evolution of monkeys and apes have been found.

(New dinosaur with heart-shaped tail offers clues to evolution of Africa's ecosystems, National Science Foundation)

Steerforth was considerate, too; and showed his consideration, in one particular instance, in an unflinching manner that was a little tantalizing, I suspect, to poor Traddles and the rest.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The possibility that intermediate mass black holes exist but are currently hidden from our view is both tantalizing and frustrating, according to Deidre Shoemaker of Georgia Tech, a co-author of the paper.

(Observing 'black hole symphony' using gravitational wave astronomy, National Science Foundation)

An occasional dinner at Ruth's helped to keep strength in his body, though he found it tantalizing enough to refuse further helping when his appetite was raging at sight of so much food spread before it.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

There they crouched by the fire, the pair of them, at the end of their days, old and withered and helpless, racked by rheumatism, bitten by hunger, and tantalized by the frying-odors of my abundance of meat.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

But her faith in the good spot which exists in the heart of the naughtiest, sauciest, most tantalizing little ragamuffin gave her patience, skill, and in time success, for no mortal boy could hold out long with Father Bhaer shining on him as benevolently as the sun, and Mother Bhaer forgiving him seventy times seven.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He was afflicted always with a gnawing restlessness, more tantalizing than in the old days before he possessed her love; for now that he did possess her love, the possession of her was far away as ever.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But now he had seen that world, possible and real, with a flower of a woman called Ruth in the midmost centre of it; and thenceforth he must know bitter tastes, and longings sharp as pain, and hopelessness that tantalized because it fed on hope.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)