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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

kittle.

To tickle, to touch lightly.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb

  1. To tickle, to touch lightly.

    Northern-England · Scotland · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English kitelen, from Old English citelian (“to tickle”), from Proto-West Germanic *kitilōn, from Proto-Germanic *kitilōną, frequentative form of Proto-Germanic *kitōną (“to tickle”), from Proto-Indo-European *geyd- (“to stick, jab, tickle”). Cognate with Dutch kittelen, kietelen (“to tickle”), Low German kettelen, ketelen (“to tickle”), German kitzeln (“to tickle”), Icelandic kitla (“to tickle”), Swedish kittla, kittsla, Danish kilde and perhaps Old Armenian կիծ- (kic-, “to sting, bite”), but note that many such words are sound-symbolic. Compare tickle.

adj

  1. Ticklish.

    Northern-England · Scotland

  2. Not easily managed

    Northern-England · Scotland
Where this word comes from

From Middle English kitelen, from Old English citelian (“to tickle”), from Proto-West Germanic *kitilōn, from Proto-Germanic *kitilōną, frequentative form of Proto-Germanic *kitōną (“to tickle”), from Proto-Indo-European *geyd- (“to stick, jab, tickle”). Cognate with Dutch kittelen, kietelen (“to tickle”), Low German kettelen, ketelen (“to tickle”), German kitzeln (“to tickle”), Icelandic kitla (“to tickle”), Swedish kittla, kittsla, Danish kilde and perhaps Old Armenian կիծ- (kic-, “to sting, bite”), but note that many such words are sound-symbolic. Compare tickle.

verb

  1. To bring forth young, as a cat; to kitten; to litter.

    Northern-England · Scotland · intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English kitelen, from Old Norse kjetla (“to bring forth young”), equivalent to kit + -le.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.