tease
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To poke fun at, either cruelly or affectionately in a playful way.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
teezIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtiz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
transitive
To poke fun at, either cruelly or affectionately in a playful way.
transitive
To provoke or disturb; to annoy.
transitive
To deliberately arouse someone sexually with no intention of satisfying that arousal.
transitive
To separate the fibres of (a fibrous material).
transitive
To comb (originally with teasels) so that the fibres all lie in one direction.
Separate the fibers of
noun
One who teases.
A single act of teasing.
One who deliberately arouses others (usually men) sexually with no intention of satisfying that arousal.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To poke fun at, either cruelly or affectionately in a playful way.
Used this way, tease is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. Keep it for friendly, informal settings.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Playful
- Usage feel
- Playful and informal
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use tease
- “The flirting man teased the young woman.”verb
- “The children teased the boy because of his stammer.”verb
- “The children teased the new teacher.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The act of harassing someone playfully or maliciously (especially by ridicule).
A worker who teases wool.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Disentangle and raise the fibers of.
A difficult problem.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to poke fun at or either cruelly
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.