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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

tantalize.

To tease (someone) by offering or showing them something desirable but leaving them unsatisfied.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈtæntəlaɪz/
  1. To tease (someone) by offering or showing them something desirable but leaving them unsatisfied.

    transitive
  2. To be teased by something desirable that is kept out of reach.

    intransitive · obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Tantalus (Ancient Greek Τάνταλος (Tántalos)) in Greek mythology, who was condemned to Tartarus in the underworld. There, he had to stand for eternity in water that receded from him when he stooped to drink, beneath fruit trees whose branches were always out of reach. Derived as Tantalus + -ize.

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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.