tantalize

• tantalise (non-Oxford British English)

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.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtæntəlaɪz/

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tantalize (third-person singular simple present tantalizes, present participle tantalizing, simple past and past participle tantalized) (transitive)

1. To tease (someone) by offering something desirable but keeping it out of reach.
   • 1640, Thomas Fuller, “A Comment on 1 Cor. II. 20. 21.”, in Ioseph’s Partie-coloured Coat: Containing, a Comment on Part of the II. Chapter of the I. Epistle of S. Paul to the Corinthians. […], London: […] Iohn Dawson, for Iohn Williams, […], →OCLC, page 24:

     The poore people in Corinth did ſee, and ſmell, vvhat the rich men taſted, Tantalizing all the vvhile, and having their penury doubled by the Antiperiſtaſis of others plenty; yea, ryot and exceſſe, for ſome of them vvere drunken.

2. To bait (someone) by showing something desirable but leaving them unsatisfied.

• 1880, John Boyle O'Reilly, “The Land of the Red Line”, in Moondyne:

  They could not bear to be tantalized nor tortured by the splendid delusion.

• 1884, Edwin Abbott Abbott, “Other Worlds”, in Flatland, § 22:

  All pleasures palled upon me; all sights tantalized and tempted me to outspoken treason, because I could not but compare what I saw in Two Dimensions with what it really was if seen in Three, and could hardly refrain from making my comparisons aloud.

• 1895 October, Stephen Crane, chapter XV, in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 149:

  He had been possessed of much fear of his friend, for he saw how easily questionings could make holes in his feelings. Lately, he had assured himself that the altered comrade would not tantalize him with a persistent curiosity, but he felt certain that during the first period of leisure his friend would ask him to relate his adventures of the previous day.

• 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 124:

  Then he signed the warrior to continue to shoot arrows into the great beast while he attempted to close in upon him with the knife; so as one tantalized upon one side, the other sneaked cautiously in upon the other.

• 1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 3, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 53:

  “It was—simply amazing,” she repeated abstractedly. “But I swore I wouldn’t tell it and here I am tantalizing you.”

• 1936, H. P. Lovecraft, chapter IX, in At the Mountains of Madness:

  As we threaded our dim way through the labyrinth with the aid of map and compass […] we were repeatedly tantalized by the sculptured walls along our route.

• tantalizing

• “tantalize”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.