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Crossword clues for ticklish

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
ticklish
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ I didn't know you were so ticklish.
▪ Then we were faced with the ticklish issue of who would pay for the meal.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Fortunately for the Conservative Party, David Mellor is now in charge of this ticklish portfolio.
▪ Groom these ticklish areas with a stable rubber, tea cloth or your hand and work at it gently.
▪ It was becoming a ticklish situation.
▪ That remains a bit of a ticklish subject between the rowers and archers.
▪ The driver then has the ticklish problem of explaining to the missus why he came home by bus.
▪ The evolution comes at a ticklish time.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Ticklish

Ticklish \Tic"klish\, a.

  1. Sensible to slight touches; easily tickled; as, the sole of the foot is very ticklish; the hardened palm of the hand is not ticklish.
    --Bacon.

  2. Standing so as to be liable to totter and fall at the slightest touch; unfixed; easily affected; unstable.

    Can any man with comfort lodge in a condition so dismally ticklish?
    --Barrow.

  3. Difficult; nice; critical; as, a ticklish business.

    Surely princes had need, in tender matters and ticklish times, to beware what they say.
    --Bacon. [1913 Webster] -- Tic"klish*ly, adv. -- Tic"klish*ness, n.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
ticklish

"easily tickled," 1590s, from tickle + -ish. Literal sense is attested later than the figurative sense "easy to upset" (1580s). An earlier word for this was tickly (1520s). Meaning "difficult to do, dubious, requiring great care" is from 1590s. Related: Ticklishly; ticklishness.

Wiktionary
ticklish

a. 1 sensitive or susceptible to being tickled. 2 touchy, sensitive, or delicate.

WordNet
ticklish

adj. difficult to handle; requiring great tact; "delicate negotiations with the big powers"; "hesitates to be explicit on so ticklish a matter" [syn: delicate]

Usage examples of "ticklish".

I took Lidia by the hand with the intention of leading her there, but a ticklish sensation on top of my head stopped me.

He snortles, ticklish, his double chin visible through his beard as he cringes.

Havel, who was ticklish, jerked his foot, so that the masseuse had to rebuke him.

Future Periphrastic Conjugation and that ticklish difference between the Gerund and the Gerundive, which is vital.

Down this ticklish descent the canoe had glanced, amid fragments of broken rock, whirlpools, foam, and furious tossings of the element, which an uninstructed eye would believe menaced inevitable destruction to an object so fragile.

He swirled his tongue around her anklebone, a ticklish spot, and had she been able to move, Rina would have pulled her leg away.

Judging from the ticklish way the basswood hung on it, the task looked dangerous.

Instead of getting to know each other, becoming familiar with likes and dislikes, ticklish spots, pet peeves, Desdemona and Lefty tried to defamiliarize themselves with each other.

Haider found himself in the ticklish position - for the key man in the plot to overthrow Hitler the moment he gave the word to attack - of having to explain in great detail the General Staffs plan for the campaign in Czechoslovakia, and in the uncomfortable position, as it developed, of seeing Hitler tear it to shreds and dress down not only him but Brauchitsch for their timidity and their military incapabilities.

As the photography took rather a long time, I assumed that the crevasse was one of the filled ones and presented no particular danger, but that Bjaaland wanted to have a souvenir among his photographs of the numerous crevasses and ticklish situations we had been exposed to.

We spent the night in reading that magnificent translation in Italian blank verse, but the reading was often interrupted by my pupil's laughter when we came to some rather ticklish passage.

But argufying with a ticklish female don't do a bit of good, so I gave over.

There only remained the ticklish job of manoeuvring it back to its gun port and securing it with fresh breechings.

And imagine me, who had melted a silver spoon in my mouth--a sizable silver spoon steward--imagine me, my old sore bones, my old belly reminiscent of youth's delights, my old palate ticklish yet and not all withered of the deviltries of taste learned in younger days--as I say, steward, imagine me, who had ever been free-handed, lavish, saving that dollar and a half intact like a miser, never spending a penny of it on tobacco, never mitigating by purchase of any little delicacy the sad condition of my stomach that protested against the harshness and indigestibility of our poor fare.

However, to shorten the story, Friday danced so much, and the bear stood so ticklish, that we had laughing enough indeed, but still could not imagine what the fellow would do, for first we thought he depended upon shaking the bear off, and we found that the bear was too cunning for that too, for he would not get out far enough to be thrown down, but clung fast with his great broad claws and feet, so that we could not imagine what would be the end of it, and where the jest would be at last.