tease
Americanverb (used with object)
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teases,
present (3rd person singular)
-
teased,
past participle, past
-
teasing
present participle
-
to irritate or provoke with persistent petty distractions, trifling jests, or other annoyances, often in a playful way.
If your little sister is teasing you about your boyfriend and following you around making kissy faces, it’s because she’s jealous and wants your attention.
- Antonyms:
- mollify
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to bully, harass, or torment.
I was teased about my lisp when I was younger.
New animals are kept isolated when they first arrive at the sanctuary to prevent the established pack from teasing or frightening them.
-
to purposely excite or sexually arouse (someone) without subsequent gratification.
Don’t tease me with vacation ideas you know we can’t afford!
She teased her fiancé with a sexy little dance even though she knew they couldn’t go all the way with a house full of guests.
-
to pull apart or separate the adhering fibers of (wool or the like), as in combing or carding; comb or card, as wool; shred.
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to ruffle (the hair) by holding it at the ends and combing toward the scalp so as to give body to a hairdo.
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to raise a nap on (cloth) with teasels; teasel.
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to introduce (a new product) without revealing details about it, conveying only that the product exists and will be available at a future date.
Both developers teased next generation game consoles at the expo, but neither released specs.
verb (used without object)
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teases,
present (3rd person singular)
-
teased,
past participle, past
-
teasing
present participle
noun
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teases
plural
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a person who teases or annoys.
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a person who purposely excites or sexually arouses another, but then withholds gratification: All I did was set some sexual boundaries, but now he's spreading rumors that I'm a tease.
The weatherman needs to stop being such a tease with these predicted snow days.
All I did was set some sexual boundaries, but now he's spreading rumors that I'm a tease.
-
the act of teasing or the state of being teased.
-
Television. teaser.
verb phrase
verb
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to annoy (someone) by deliberately offering something with the intention of delaying or withdrawing the offer
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to arouse sexual desire in (someone) with no intention of satisfying it
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to vex (someone) maliciously or playfully, esp by ridicule
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(tr) to separate the fibres of; comb; card
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(tr) to raise the nap of (a fabric) with a teasel
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Also: backcomb. to comb the under layers of (the hair) towards the roots to give more bulk to a hairstyle
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(tr) to loosen or pull apart (biological tissues, etc) by delicate agitation or prodding with an instrument
noun
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a person or thing that teases
-
the act of teasing
Synonym Usage
See bother.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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teasablenessnoun
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outteaseverb (used with object)
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teasableadjective
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teasingadjective
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unteasedadjective
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teasinglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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teasesimple
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teasessimple
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have teasedperfect
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has teasedperfect
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am teasingprogressive
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are teasingprogressive
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is teasingprogressive
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have been teasingperfect progressive
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has been teasingperfect progressive
Past
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teasedsimple
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had teasedperfect
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was teasingprogressive
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were teasingprogressive
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had been teasingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of tease
First recorded before 1000; Middle English verb tese(n), teise, Old English tǣsan “to pull, tear, comb”; cognate with Middle Low German tesen, Old High German zeisan “to pluck”; the noun is derivative of the verb
Explanation
To tease is to pick on someone or to give false hope. You can tease your little sister by saying "nanny nanny boo boo" or by holding a cookie just out of her reach. Tease, a modern spelling of the Old English taesan “pluck, pull apart" is now associated with the act of harassing. You can still use tease as a verb, though, to describe the act of backcombing your hair to give it volume. But more commonly, tease refers to messing with someone. There’s an old proverb, “Patience when teased is often transformed into rage,” which means if you tease someone a lot, you might get your booty kicked!
Vocabulary lists containing tease
myPerspectives 9.1
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"Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Bond geeks have lots of measures that ought to allow us to tease apart the two stories.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026
The band then posted a series of cryptic videos on their official social media channels appearing to tease gigs across the UK and Europe.
From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026
“It’s a real challenge to try and tease out one thing out of the array of factors that undermine women’s health in these states,” said Eugene Declercq, a public health researcher at Boston University.
From Salon ● Sep. 13, 2026
Analysts use statistical techniques like linear regression to help tease this out.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 17, 2026
“Eh, Papa,” they’d tease, using the Chichewa word.
From "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" by William Kamkwamba
Her son, Jack, 34, whom she shares with ex-husband Dennis Quaid, often teases his mom about her home renovation process and has even branded her work “Meg-anized.”
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 23, 2026
Set to a throbbing synth bassline, the song teases fans by interpolating a line from her 1980s classic Into The Groove: "Out here on the dance floor, I feel so free."
From BBC ● Apr. 15, 2026
The Rail Events Inc. press release also teases a possible encounter with “a dark and mysterious force.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 15, 2026
On the way out, after one fellow diner tells Domingo he’s a fan, the actor teases another who tries to play it cool after spotting the star.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 10, 2026
But what if he’s wrong; what if Angel laughs and teases me even more?
From "Isaiah Dunn Is My Hero" by Kelly J. Baptist
As is to be expected from the Silent Hill games, the real reasons why you're there and what's going on are teased as you progress through the story in a typically vague fashion.
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2026
The Times has reached out to Amazon Studios for more information on the project, which does not appear in press materials, though Ratner teased the new “chapters” in an Aug. 11 Instagram post.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2026
The former first son launched his namesake memecoin on Wednesday, less than two days after the project was teased in an exclusive story published by the Wall Street Journal.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 9, 2026
The White House released several games Thursday, with a placeholder that teased another one "coming soon."
From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026
"You could do a bit of housecleaning for a change," Allun teased.
From "Rowan of Rin" by Emily Rodda
For the last several days, the company has been teasing a “Cybercab launch event” in its hometown of Austin, Texas.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 21, 2026
Even the winning six delivered a tantalising wait, hanging in the air, teasing the chance of a catch, but it just crept over the rope to spark Super Giants' celebrations.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
The Spidey Tracker info from the “Brand New Day” post-credits scene could be teasing that’s where Spider-Man will eventually land.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
Writing in The Times, Beard bemoaned that the poem's "erotic puzzles, the teasing ironies, the intriguing questions about truth and falsehood" had been replaced with "a rather ponderous Hollywood message about civilisational decline".
From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026
He said it in that silly, teasing tone we’d been using this whole time, but he might as well have grabbed my heart and squeezed it in his fist.
From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
