tantalize means to tease (someone) by offering or showing them something desirable but leaving them unsatisfied. It carries an Arena rating of 2071, earned across 54 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, tantalize ranks #2 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #3 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #10 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #526 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words.
tantalize is pronounced /ˈtæntəlaɪz/.
Why “tantalize” is a great word
To tease or torment by presenting a desired object or outcome that remains perpetually, cruelly unobtainable. From the name of Tantalus (Ancient Greek Τάνταλος (Tántalos)), a figure in Greek mythology who was punished by being placed in water that receded when he tried to drink and under fruit-laden branches that withdrew when he reached for them, combined with the verb-forming suffix -ize. Unlike “tease,” which implies a playful, ephemeral provocation, or “torment,” which suggests an overt infliction of anguish, to tantalize is to engineer a specific and exquisite hell of frustration. It is the scent of a feast from a locked kitchen, the shimmer of a mirage that paces your thirst, and the perfect, unheard melody that haunts the edge of silence—the art of making hope itself the instrument of despair.
Etymology
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.
verb
- To tease (someone) by offering or showing them something desirable but leaving them unsatisfied.e.g.“They could not bear to be tantalized nor tortured by the splendid delusion.” — 1880, John Boyle O'Reilly, “The Land of the Red Line”, in Moondyne:
- To be teased by something desirable that is kept out of reach.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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