ticklish
Americanadjective
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sensitive to tickling.
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requiring careful or delicate handling or action; difficult or risky; dicey.
a ticklish situation.
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extremely sensitive; touchy.
He is ticklish about being interrupted.
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unstable or easily upset, as a boat; unsteady.
adjective
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susceptible and sensitive to being tickled
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delicate or difficult
a ticklish situation
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easily upset or offended
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ticklish
Explanation
The word ticklish means both "sensitive to being tickled" and "requiring tact or careful handling." A lot of people avoid ticklish subjects when they meet someone new, instead sticking to safe topics like the weather. You know you're ticklish if you squirm and giggle when your friend tickles your feet. You're also ticklish if you're easily upset or irritated. For you, ticklish subjects might include politics, conspiracy theories, and which musician should have won a Grammy. That means those topics are particularly difficult, requiring a careful, tactful person to keep you from getting upset about them. This figurative sense predates the literal one, and an earlier version was tickly.
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.
The decision on how to handle Anderson is ticklish for England.
From BBC • Mar. 11, 2024
The job drought is a ticklish problem for the ruling Communist Party, which is overseeing a sluggish post-pandemic economic recovery worsened by a downturn in the property market.
From Seattle Times • Sep. 12, 2023
Yet Page never goes so far as to strip the songs of their ticklish pleasures while stripping them of their varnish.
From New York Times • Jun. 21, 2022
There’s a crooked face composed of peas, peppers and a lone olive atop the causa de pollo, a carefully layered mashed-potato cake stuffed with chicken salad, so creamy and ticklish.
From Washington Post • Nov. 8, 2021
The dignity of Beowulf’s bow was marred by the appearance of Shantaloo, who had emerged from the shadows and now rubbed against his leg in a ticklish fashion.
From "The Interrupted Tale" by Maryrose Wood
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.
