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Tease   Listen
verb
Tease  v. t.  (past & past part. teased; pres. part. teasing)  
1.
To comb or card, as wool or flax. "Teasing matted wool."
2.
To stratch, as cloth, for the purpose of raising a nap; teasel.
3.
(Anat.) To tear or separate into minute shreds, as with needles or similar instruments.
4.
To vex with importunity or impertinence; to harass, annoy, disturb, or irritate by petty requests, or by jests and raillery; to plague. "He... suffered them to tease him into acts directly opposed to his strongest inclinations."
Synonyms: To vex; harass: annoy; disturb; irritate; plague; torment; mortify; tantalize; chagrin. Tease, Vex. To tease is literally to pull or scratch, and implies a prolonged annoyance in respect to little things, which is often more irritating, and harder to bear, than severe pain. Vex meant originally to seize and bear away hither and thither, and hence, to disturb; as, to vex the ocean with storms. This sense of the term now rarely occurs; but vex is still a stronger word than tease, denoting the disturbance or anger created by minor provocations, losses, disappointments, etc. We are teased by the buzzing of a fly in our eyes; we are vexed by the carelessness or stupidity of our servants. "Not by the force of carnal reason, But indefatigable teasing." "In disappointments, where the affections have been strongly placed, and the expectations sanguine, particularly where the agency of others is concerned, sorrow may degenerate into vexation and chagrin."
Tease tenon (Joinery), a long tenon at the top of a post to receive two beams crossing each other one above the other.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tease" Quotes from Famous Books



... consequently, be debarred of the pleasure and privilege of asking them; but even at such times as these the disposition to ask them must not be attributed to him as a fault. Never tell him that he is "a little tease"—that "you are tired to death of answering his questions"—that he is "a chatter-box that would weary the patience of Job;" or that, if he will "sit still for half an hour, without speaking a word, you will give him a reward." If you are going to be engaged, and so can not attend to him, ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... said; "but that old cock does make me so wild. I know he understands, and he does it on purpose to tease me. I wish you'd ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... the floor a little behind her one day. We were paying a great deal of attention, but it was not so much to Miss Martin as to a stock of wood-lice which I had collected, and which I was arranging on the carpet that Jem might see how they roll themselves into smooth tight balls when you tease them. But at last she talked so that we could not help attending. I dared not say anything to her, but her own tactics were available. I put the wood-lice back in my pocket, and stretching my arms yawningly above ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... anxious to have you caught—not now. But you are almost impertinent; indeed you are. I cannot say a word you do not misinterpret. Please do not attempt to tease ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish

... roared fiercely. "You put down that there jack-knife. Didn't the Cap'n say as you wasn't to tease your sister?" ...
— The Little Skipper - A Son of a Sailor • George Manville Fenn

... was not involved, Bathsheba genuinely repented that a freak which had owed its existence as much to Liddy as to herself, should ever have been undertaken, to disturb the placidity of a man she respected too highly to deliberately tease. ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... witch's fingers, and Gavin was still trembling under their touch. Even in being taken to task by her there was a charm, for every pout of her mouth, every shake of her head, said, "You like me, and therefore you have given me the right to tease you." Men sign these agreements without reading them. But, indeed, man is a stupid animal at the best, and thinks all his life that he did not propose until he blurted out, ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... quite sincere. Gertrude had put the book on the table, hoping to tease Cannie. She had overheard something which her mother was telling Candace the day before,—an explanation about some little point of manners,—and it had suggested the idea of the old volume. Her shaft had missed its mark somehow, or, like the boomerangs used by the Australian ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge

... said: "Willoughby will everlastingly tease that boy to be loved by him. Perhaps, poor fellow, he had an excuse last night. Anyhow, he went into Crossjay's room this morning, woke him up and talked to him, and set the lad crying, and what with one thing and another Crossjay got a berry in his throat, as he calls ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the spring when the grass Had sprung up in the pass, And the meadows with velvet were green, We children would tease, "O, dear mother, please Let us doff shoes and stockings, (Ah! naught gave us shockings), And barefooted run o'er the leas, Aye, barefooted ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... "Don't tease Mamma with questions," said the Captain; "she is not very well, and rather sad. We must all be very kind and good to poor dear Mamma;" and the Captain raised his wife's hand to his lips as he spoke. Robin seized the other hand and kissed it tenderly. He was very fond of his ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... "Don't tease, dear," she murmured, noticing that Farraday was watching them. Stefan with a shrug retained the cigarette in his left hand, and smoked it ostentatiously for some minutes, alternately with his own. Mary, hoping ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... her head and looked straight into his face, as was her custom. "Do you wish to tease ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... irresolutely at the conjurer, but repressed the desire to learn more of the future, fearing her father's laughter. She knew that, when Lysander was well and free from pain, nothing pleased him so much as to tease her till ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... 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 of sins, and a hope, from the supposed merits of so good a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... a little guardian angel to three lively brothers who tease and play with her.... Her unconscious goodness brings right thoughts and resolves to several persons who come into contact with her. There is no goodiness in this tale, but its influence is of the best ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... face, with laughter bubbling up behind his gravity. Ah, but could one tease on such a subject as their love? And to this day the figure of that tall girl with the burning-white skin, the burning-brown eyes, the burning-red hair was not quite a pleasant memory to Gyp. After that night, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... offered Ritson a slice of beef, when that strange man burst out in such outrageous tones at what he chose to suppose an insult, that Leyden threatened to "thraw his neck" if he were not silent, a threat which frightened Ritson out of the cottage. On another occasion, simply in order to tease Ritson, Leyden complained that the meat was overdone, and sent to the kitchen for a plate of literally raw beef, and ate it up solely for the purpose of shocking his crazy rival in antiquarian research. Poor Leyden did not long survive ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... strange," he remarked, "that you cannot learn not to ask to do what I have forbidden. I shall have to punish you every time you do it; for you must learn that no means no, and that you are never to coax or tease after papa has once said it. I love my little girl very dearly, and want to do all I can to make her happy, but I must have her entirely submissive and obedient to me. But stop crying now," he added, wiping her eyes with his handkerchief. "Kiss me, and tell me you are going to be a good girl, ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley

... announced; the first consul declared that he and his wife would attend, and he invited Mehul, whom he liked to tease and worry, because he loved him from his heart, to attend the ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... she said, and dropped the hand to her side. "But don't tell the rest where it came from. I may want to tease them." ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... Fairy bungalows nesting in tropic gardens and waving welcome with their palm-fronds to the rushing train.... The Baie des Anges laughing with sky and hills.... The many-tunnelled cliff-route from Villefranche to Cap D'Ail, where moments of darkness tease one to longing for the sight of the azure coves dotted with white-winged yachts and foam-slashed ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... I'll show you acting that will make your hair stand on end, and you shall act too. Bab will be capital for the naughty girls," began Thorny, excited by the prospect of producing a sensation on the boards, and always ready to tease the girls. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... and Sunday afternoons ordinarily from two to a dozen girl friends called her up at the boarding-house, or dropped in by ones and twos to chat a while, tease her about Jack, or plan some mild frivolity. Hazel went home, wondering if they, too, ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... although the greater part of the Irish Nationalist members are everywhere rejected beforehand by superior Home Rulers, as unfit for an Irish Parliament, they are apparently for that very reason sent to the House of Commons as the best sort to tease the brutal Saxon. The bulldog is not the noblest, nor the handsomest, nor the swiftest, nor the most faithful, nor the most sagacious, nor the most pleasant companion of the canine world, but he is a good 'un to hang on the nose ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... come and quarrel with us. Whenever he had nothing particular to do, he would say to himself, "I'll go and tease those old bears." And he did. His plan was to get on our trees from behind, where we could not see him, then to come round on our side about five or six feet from the ground, just safely out of reach, and there, hanging head downwards, call us every name ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson

... and I could meet him in society, chat with him, and let it end there. We can't keep this thing up forever, that is, we of the younger generations. Why should I hate that big, good-natured fellow? The very idea seems ridiculous. I could laugh at him, and tease and satirize him a little, but I could no more feel as you do toward him, than I could cherish an enmity toward a sunflower. Still, since father feels as he does, I shall have to cut him as far as possible, should I ever meet him again, which is not probable. I reckon that Mrs. Willoughby will ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... my passion for you prevents me from doing my work. You tease and torture me with doubt, and when I should be thinking of my duties I am wondering whether or not you care for me. Do you love me? I ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris

... "Come now, do not tease me with bidding me remember the Bishop of Tronyem's cattle. The underground people have something to do elsewhere to-day; they give no heed ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... and Joan stared. "You'll have to lure the public, Elspeth, there's no doubt about that. Tea rooms are no novelty these days. You'll have to tease it with a bait, and the rest ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... to 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 ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... mind her, Miss Ashe. She's an awful tease. Joy isn't anything worse than a stick—a bore. If you have a nice disposition you'll get on ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs

... and they will. Love all things and be kind to them. Don't kick the dog, or speak roughly to him. Don't pull pussy's tail, nor chase the hens, nor try to frighten the cow. Never throw stones at the birds. Never hurt nor tease anything. Speak gently and lovingly to them and they will love you, and everybody that knows you ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton

... far away The rabbit's children squeak and play; They tease Eliza till she cries, And with her apron hides ...
— Careless Jane and Other Tales • Katharine Pyle

... what a tease you are!" said his sister. "I should like to tell you, dear," she added, in a patronising tone. "Come and sit down here, and tell me what ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie

... Henry, sadly; "I have neither father, mother, sister, nor brother. I am alone in the world, and have no other friend but my comrade, Fritz Kober. Will you not give him to me, comrades? Will you tease him because he is the friend of a poor, young fellow, against whom you have nothing to say except that he is just seventeen years old and has no heard and his voice a little thin, not able to make as much noise as yourself? Promise me that you will ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... Legation Nelly 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 ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper

... upon him as one. We do just as we like with him,—scold and tease him, and send him on our errands;" which intelligence fairly convinced the envious Hamilton that the youngest Miss Challoner was not his ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... could I be with either, Were t' other dear charmer away! But while ye thus tease me together, To neither a word will I say. Beggar's Opera, Act ii. Sc. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... oppose his setting up as a sort of art nouveau Sherlock Holmes. Whether he has found out about some schoolgirl peccadillo of Miss Lethbridge's, and is dangling it over her head, Damocles sword fashion, I can't tell, because he won't tell; though he looks offensively wise when I tease him, and I have tried in vain, on my own account, to discover. But certain it is that he is either blackmailing her in a milk-and-water way, or hypnotizing her to ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... when you will come to Boston. Your lectures are boldly and joyfully expected by brave young men. So do not forget us: and if ever the scale-beam trembles, I beseech you, let the love of me decide for America. I will not dare to tease you on a matter of so many relations, and so important, and especially as I have written out, I believe, my requests in a letter sent two or three months ago,—but I must see you somewhere, somehow, may it please ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... was written for me. And you, if you would make me happy, always will look at yourself from my ground and by my light, as I see you, and consent to be selfish in all things. Observe, that if I were vacillating, I should not be so weak as to tease you with the process of the vacillation: I should wait till my pendulum ceased swinging. It is precisely because I am your own, past any retraction or wish of retraction,—because I belong to you by gift and ownership, and am ready and willing ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... to us that he understood children as well as sheep; at all events he would allow them to tease and pull him about most unmercifully, and actually appeared to enjoy it. Our first riding-lessons were taken on his back; but old Pechicho eventually made one mistake, after which he was relieved from the labour of carrying us. When I was ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... this? I give away my case! Swear a fool's oath! Thy tears my safety won. Now wilt thou flirt, and tease me to my face— Such mischief has my babbling ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... been MISERABLE ever since. DO come round as early as possible and tell me I am forgiven. But before you tell me that, please lecture me till I cry—though indeed I have been crying half through the night. And then if you want to be VERY horrid you may tease me for being so slow to see a joke. And then you might take me to see some of the Colleges and things before we go on to lunch at The MacQuern's? Forgive pencil and scrawl. Am sitting up in bed to ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... to tease you, but I just couldn't help it. I had no intention of acting up like that, but when I just patted your hand you got so mad, that I thought it would be fun to go on. I'm glad you ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells

... was right just now: M. Louis is only trying to tease me by saying that the magistrate cross-examined me severely. As a matter of fact I was simply asked what I have just told you, and when I gave all this explanation, no fault at all was found with ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... of them were daughters of the chief of the camp, and the smaller of these wanted the best of everything. If any child found a pretty stone she would try to take it for herself. The other children did not like this, and they began to tease the little girl, and to take her things away from her. Then she got angry and began to cry, and the more she cried the more the children teased her; so at last she and her sister left the others ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... speaking of tables, Fritzy, I like a nice long table with plenty of young people at it. And myself at the head, carving and carving, and seeing the plates passed round and round and round;—getting them back and back and back—There, there, Katje! They shan't tease you. We'll keep the table just as it is. For you and Fritz and me. A nice little circle. All in ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... the neck of his master, and is even more human in his behaviour than the orang-utan, from which he differs in temperament, being more vivacious and inclined to mischief. In a kampong I once saw a young gibbon repeatedly descend into a narrow inclosure to tease a large pig confined there. The latter, although three or four times as large, seemed entirely at his mercy and was submissive and frightened, even when his ears were pulled by the wah-wah. During my travels in the jungle of Borneo, few were the days in which I was not summoned to ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... things very plain indeed. I think we all felt that we had been almost traitors in not rallying to the Lord's standard better than we had done. Even Dick paid some attention, for he said after church—you know what a tease he is—'now I hope you see where you ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock

... of her grasp with a scowl, but he took the pail and went out to the pen. All the time that piggy ate, he was considering what to do. "I'll tease 'em," he decided, "and tease and tease, and then they'll let ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... can't have it. He can't marry Miss P——, nor yet her fortune, nor ever shall! I shall remain at Brussels—I have friends here—and friends who were my friends before I was forced to give my hand to Mr. Wharton, or my smiles to you, sir!—people who will not tease me with talking of remorse and repentance, and such ungallant, ungentlemanlike stuff; nor sit bewailing themselves, like a country parson, instead of dashing out with me here in a fashionable style, as a man of any spirit would have done. But you!—you're neither ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... myself all sorts 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 over having ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford

... pretty daughter, was not afraid of man nor devil. So it came about that Canute went over to take his alcohol with Ole oftener than he took it alone, After a while the report spread that he was going to marry Yensen's daughter, and the Norwegian girls began to tease Lena about the great bear she was going to keep house for. No one could quite see how the affair had come about, for Canute's tactics of courtship were somewhat peculiar. He apparently never spoke to her at all: he would sit for hours with Mary chattering on ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... had no dowry. Why do you tease me with that? No, everything I have I will sell or pawn. The pearls, my gold ornaments, I will take off of my katiba. The gold buttons can be melted. My brooch and my necklace, with twelve strings of pearls, I will ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous

... good qualities. She was a dutiful daughter, 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, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... the sudden rise is quite a heavy pull, And yet I fear a short-cut here because of Craddock's bull; So I just tease the bull till he's as mad as he can get, And then I face the corner place that's been so long to let. It's very well for Ma to tell about my dawdling habits. What would you do, suppose you knew the place was thick ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis

... Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and trodden weed; Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"—that is all Ye know on earth, ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron

... should not be inquisitive,' said George, who dearly loved to tease his sister. 'You may ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... we are glad, And we know how to tease him! But some dark night he'll get a fright, For Hooty'll ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Mocker • Thornton W. Burgess

... any difference of opinion when it came to Barbie. The' wasn't a man on the place who wasn't willin' to stretch a neck for her. She knew 'em all by name an' used to tease 'em an' contrairy 'em; but she never hid behind bein' the boss's daughter. Any time they scored, she paid, an' that was the thing that made 'em worship her. She had changed a lot in the five years I'd been away; not only in size, ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... Temple. "There, finish dressing, Dick," he said, as Will slid down the ladder and took it away. "I thought there was to be no more of this petty anger, Arthur. You are old enough to know better, and yet you behave like a fractious child. Don't tease him, Dick; he can't bear ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... "Miss Johnnie." It was hard to recognize the old Johnnie, square and sturdy and full of merry life, in poor, thin, whining Curly, always complaining of something, who lay on the sofa reading story-books, and begging Phil and Dorry to let her alone, not to tease her, and to go off and play by themselves. Her eyes looked twice as big as usual, because her face was so small and pale, and though she was still a pretty child, it was in a different way from the old prettiness. Katy and Clover were very kind and gentle always, but Elsie sometimes lost patience ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... perfectly well that Nino had only asked for the extra lesson in order to get a chance of talking about the Contessina di Lira, and so, to tease him, as soon as he appeared, the maestro made a great bustle about singing scales, and insisted on beginning at once. Moreover, he pretended to be in a bad humour; and that is always ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... tease you a bit," he said. "I suppose I might have told you that the pretty girls were those I had engaged to help in the banquet scene, together with the young fellows. We had only a few rehearsals in my tent, and I didn't want to ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... in teasing her, and chuckled with delight when his indulgent mother would tell her visiting friends that he was a great tease. ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major

... would have let her. She was gathering herself together for the effort, when, within arm's reach now, she saw the tempting paper, and seized it with glee, for in spite of her predicament she did want to tease Frank. A glance showed that it was not the composition nor a note, but the beginning of a letter from Mrs. Minot to her sister, and Jill was about to lay it down when her own name caught her eye, and she could not resist reading it. Hard words to write of one so young, doubly hard to read, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... Kenneth liked to tease his sister-in-law, but the young girl was quite his equal when it came to a battle of wits and it was not often that she gave ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow

... immature soldiers among the Insurrectos, and most of them were in some way distinguished for valor. War, it seems, fattens upon the tenderest of foods, and every army has its boys—its wondrous, well-beloved infants, whom their older comrades tease, torment, and idolize. Impetuous, drunk with youth, and keeping no company with care, they form the very aristocracy of fighting forces. They gaily undertake the maddest of adventures; and by their examples they fire the courage of their ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... seen the smallest sign of temper, and if she is well treated there is not a better, more willing animal than she is. But she has naturally a more irritable constitution than the black horse; flies tease her more; anything wrong in her harness frets her more; and if she were ill-used or unfairly treated she would not be unlikely to give tit for tat. You know that many high-mettled ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell

... something more 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 over ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... you do it now!" she laughed. "I am going there to-night just to tease Desmond O'Connor. ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin

... "you have no choice now; it is too late; you must all start with us.... But you, Fire, don't come near anybody; you, Dog, don't tease the Cat; you, Water, try not to run all over the place; and you, Sugar, stop crying, unless you want to melt. Bread shall carry the cage in which to put the Blue Bird; and you shall all come to my house, ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc

... this spring sun is too much for you." She touched the dark mass of his hair, warmed by the sun's rays, and put her head on his shoulder. She started to cry. "Don't tease me like that, Cameron. It seems like we've been waiting forever—and there's still forever ahead of us. You can't ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones

... at him as he sucked away; while surrendering her other knee to little Nicolas, who was jealous of his younger brother. And her two daughters-in-law seemed like a continuation of herself. There was Andree on the left with Ambroise, who had stepped up to tease his little Leonce; and Charlotte on the right with her two children, Guillaume, who hung on her breast, and Berthe, who had sought a place among her skirts. And here, faith in life had yielded prosperity, ever-increasing, overflowing wealth, all the ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... came back—and he found Clarry O'Grady at the Cummins' cabin. He had been there for a month with a broken leg. Perhaps it was the dangerous knowledge of the power of her beauty—the woman's instinct in her to tease with her prettiness, that led to Marie's flirtation with O'Grady. But Jan could not understand, and she played with fire—the fire of two hearts instead of one. The world went to pieces under Jan after that. There came ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... we mustn't do the thing by halves," concluded Patsy; "so our darling little brigandess must tease her papa to let her stay with us as ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... you she'd get us into trouble of some kind, if you brought her? What made you tease me so? But there, I ought to have known better myself." She went to the foot of the pole and held out her arms, crying, "Kitty, kitty, kitty," but the kitten only mewed and faintly waved its tail. Alexandra turned away decidedly. "No, she won't come down. Somebody will have to go ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... great and wealthy family for the sake of preferment and good cheer. Your Lady Elizabeth, too, with all her selfishness and excess of absurdity, is true to herself throughout, and makes a very characteristic ending of it in her third marriage. But why should I tease you by going through the different characters? Suffice it to say that I thank you very heartily, and congratulate you on again having added a work of so much merit to our stock of national novels. Perhaps before this you have received a very short publication of mine on a very serious ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... senseless thing in the world, is sometimes revealed to fools. I don't think that adjutant of ours believed in his own words. He just wanted to tease Tomassov from habit. Purely from habit. We of course said nothing, and so he took his head in his hands and fell into a doze as he sat on a log in front ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... "Don't tease me, Jim!" she begged. "I don't mind if you bought them at a pawn-shop—if that's why you won't tell me. That is the reason, ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... suddenly comes to life again, and falls plumb in the midst of our finest triumphs or our most carefully planned happiness. I have seen that you love Beatrix. I leave her therefore in a position where she loses nothing of her precious majesty; she will certainly coquet with you, if only to tease and annoy that angel of a Camille Maupin. Well, my dear fellow, take her, love her, you'll do me a great service; I want her to turn against me. I have been afraid of her pride and her virtue. Perhaps, in spite of my approval of the matter, it may take some time to effect this chassez-croissez. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... bear; he is in a cage, and cannot get out. You just stand and laugh at him, and please him with a biscuit, or tease ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... are Ruth," declared Miss Cameron, when she had carefully started the car once more. "We are going to be the very best of friends, and we might as well begin by telling each other all about ourselves. Tom and I are twins and he is an awful tease! But, then, boys are. He is a good brother generally. We live in the first yellow house on the right— up among the trees— beyond Mr. Potter's mill— near enough so that we can run back and forth and see ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson

... glory when the cat I can tease, Or I'm hunting for bird nests up in the trees, And I wear out my pants in the seat and the knees; I'm the pride of my daddy, my mammy's own joy— A ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy

... know yourself, that it wasn't very nice of Dago to go walking around the table through the butter and applesauce, and all the things to eat. I don't wonder that Aunt Patricia was provoked, 'specially when he has done so many other things to tease her. She didn't hurt him much for all her whacking around. I saw nearly as much of the fight as you did. She didn't hit him more than one lime out of ten. I was perfectly willing that my half of Dago should ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston

... Athalie said: "They tease me in school because they say I can see around corners. It makes me very cross and unhappy, and I don't want anybody to know that I see what they can't see. I'm ashamed ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... wonderful and lasting and in a way as terrible as that. It was wrong of me to tease Nanny. But I have been worried about my motherless girl. I'd like to see her happily settled. Somehow I've never worried ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... They were placed on a chair by his bed at night, and he could not sleep unless his right hand grasped the white-plumed colonel. The smell of the fresh paint as it peeled off on his little fingers clung to his memory through life as the most delicious of odors. He would tease his father to play with the soldiers with him. He would divide the force in two, and one side would defend a fort of blocks and books while the other assaulted. In these games Sam always insisted in having the plumed colonel on his side. Once when Sam's colonel had ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... this mean, this order that I've just received to prepare to leave the boat within a few hours?... It must be some kind of a joke of Toni's; he's an excellent fellow but an enemy to holy things and likes to tease me ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... association connected with our complexions. Did slavery force a man to be servile and submissive? Learn to hold up your head and respect yourself. Don't notice Mary Joseph's taunts; if she says things to tease you don't you let her see that she has succeeded. Learn to act as if you realized that you were born into this world the child of the Ruler of the universe, that this is his world and that you have as much right in it as she has. I think it was Gilbert Haven, a Bishop of ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... that she would be his if he could tell her correctly in how many different ways it was possible to spell out her name, always passing from one letter to another that was adjacent. Diagonal steps are here allowed. Whether she did this merely to tease him or to test his cleverness is not recorded, but it is satisfactory to know that he succeeded. Would you have been equally successful? Take your pencil and try. You may start from any of the H's and go backwards or forwards and in ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... "We'll just tease him until he lets you go. He'll not object much, I'm sure. I should just cry my eyes out if you didn't go with us, ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson

... finished it with a knife. Even with its heart half cut out, it still wanted to live ... beautiful pelt ... coat for Janalee, the strip-tease queen ... always had a way with women—Lyla could tell you that ... had my pick of hundreds but I'm letting ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin

... as he spoke, and Elizabeth was so enchanted to notice the gradual passing away of the look of illness, the brightening of the eye, and slight filling out of the face, that he might tease ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... pure oxygen. It romps; it does not reflect or feel. Motion is its business, not emotion. It has no concern with the deep and gentle feelings of the play, but only with its frolic. The spirit of playful torment, the disposition of a pretty tease, speaks out of ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... in body and savage in soul, as the smaller boys of the school learned to know, for when the spirit moved him he would hit them, cunningly and with science. The same spirit made him more than once try to tease Maisie, but the girl refused to be made unhappy. "We are both miserable as it is," said she. "What is the use of trying to make things worse? Let's find things to ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... hope it will," said Jenny, half vexed at Tom's pertinacity, and half amusing herself, for she thought it good fun to tease him. ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt

... tell you about some Punch-and-Judy figures I made myself. I give a Punch-and-Judy show every Saturday, and I make from five to ten cents each time. The boys tease me to play it all the time. I am eleven years old, and I can play ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... know you, Maida," Rosie confessed. "But there was no way of getting acquainted, for you always stayed in the store. I had to wait until I could tease mother to buy me ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin

... of her coquetry was gone; she did not tease or play with him; animated as she was in company, when they were alone together a ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... brush them away—and what fun it'll be when they ask me how I like my walk. I shall say—"Oh, I like it well enough—"' (here came the favourite little toss of the head), '"only it was so dusty and hot, and the elephants did tease so!"' ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll

... the kidnaping by taking Putney into my confidence, but after the child's well out of the way I shall send him a wire telling him where his daughter may be found—a gentle hint, but sufficient to tease ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... friendly or considered as pets; but puppies, small chickens, parrakeets, pigs, and baby carabao make excellent playfellows, and suffer accordingly. From the day of its birth, the young carabao is taken possession of by the children, who will fondle and tease it, ride on its back, or slide off over its head or tail. Soon they gain confidence, and find similar amusements with the full grown animals. These huge beasts are often surly or vicious, especially ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... sweet, good to him.... make him love you.... Don't tease him about my other beaux. Think how you can ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... now some pet to take care of, and, I may say, to tease, for they all thought they had a fair right to get some fun out of the pets they could call their own; but they were kind to them, fed them ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin

... meekness within the hour and had the 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 left ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... to him," said Jacqueline, as if taking her under her protection. "He is nothing but a tease; what he says is only chaff. But I might as well talk Greek to her," she added, shrugging her shoulders. "In the convent they don't know what to make of a joke. Only spare her at least, if ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... when God mixed his blood of the best, lest Caesar should find a rival He left out the salt of honesty and filled up the cup with the wine of passion. When these sayings were repeated to Caleb by Miriam, who thought them to be a jest fit to tease her playmate with, he did not fly into one of his tempers, as she had hoped, but only screwed up his eyelids after his fashion in certain moods, and looked black as the ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... Margray, looking after her with a perplexed gaze, and dropping her scissors. "Surely, Mary, you shouldn't tease her as you do. She's worn more in these four weeks than in as many years. You're a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... 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 ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... children. At present I am a poor seaman, but I hope in a few years to rise in my profession, till I am able to support a wife in the style to which you have been accustomed, if then you will give me your hand I shall be more happy than I can express. Now, don't tease me any longer, but tell me ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... they ca' me fornicator, An' tease my name in kintry clatter: The mair they talk I'm kent the better, E'en let them clash; An auld wife's tongue's a feckless ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... scarcely pry it loose. It was just after dinner. It had rained during the day so that the little garden was too damp for the evening and the whole household lingered idly in the bare drawing-room to tease the Architect. When the register was finally loosened, showers of ancient dust descended. The room echoed as with one mighty sneeze. ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... Carter came in, and joined our circle. His first aside was, "If you only knew how much I liked you last night, you would never be cruel to me again. Why, I thought you the greatest girl in the world! Please let's part friends to-night again!" I would not promise, for I knew I would tease him yet; and at supper, when I insisted on his taking a glass of milk, his face turned so red that Mrs. Carter pinched my arm blue, and refused to help me to preserves because I was making Will mad! But Waller helped me, and I drank my own milk to Mr. Carter's health ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... the worst was over. There would be a good supper—William had no misgivings on that point. Mrs. Richie would talk to him, and he would tease her and make her laugh, and laugh himself. The doctor did not laugh very much in his own house; domestic virtue does not necessarily add to the gayety of life. During the afternoon Willy tried on three different neckties, and twice put cologne ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... 'tis much as before wi' me,' replied Nat. 'One hour a week wi' God A'mighty and the rest with the devil, as a chap may say. And really, now yer poor father's gone, I'd as lief that that Sunday hour should pass like the rest; for Pa'son Tarkenham do tease a feller's conscience that much, that church is no hollerday at all to the limbs, as it was in yer reverent father's time! But we've been waiting here, Mr. San Cleeve, supposing ye had ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy

... would learn to make your letters right, the girls would not tease you," said the principal, kindly. "Why do you persist in turning them ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... "you'd better not tease Jed too much about that good-lookin' tenant of his. He's so queer and so bashful that I'm afraid if you do he'll take a notion to turn the Armstrongs out when this ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... this he was unlike the King, who, writes Horace Walpole,' expecting only an attack on Chambers, bought it to tease, and began reading it to, him; but, finding it more bitter on himself, flung it down on the floor in a passion, and would read no more.' Journal of the Reign of George ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... 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 ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... put upon him, it was deliciously flattering thus to see her in her own way suing for his favour. This made him feel like a man again. He was disposed to tease her. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... to her feet. "Oh, yes, do, Mr. Willett, make him explain everything! I've been tryin' to coax it out of him, but he's such a tease!" ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... "Don't tease mamma with questions," said the Captain; "she is not very well, and rather sad. We must all be very kind and good to poor, dear mamma;" and the Captain raised his wife's hand to his lips as he spoke. ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... come along,' said the lady of the house in a plaintive voice, and they all went into the dining-room. 'Sit beside me, Zoe,' added Anna Vassilyevna, 'and you, Helene, take our guest; and you, Paul, please don't be naughty and tease Zoe. My head ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev

... clothes together. He did not fear the punishment that might be in store for him. He was thinking of the agony of his next meeting with Piggy Pennington. Mealy fancied that Abe Carpenter, who was a quiet, philosophical boy, would not tease him, but horror seized him when ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White



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