teaser means one who teases or pokes fun. It carries an Arena rating of 1358, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, teaser ranks #2,092 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #4,549 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #4,662 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #5,232 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words.
teaser is pronounced /ˈtiːzɚ/.
Why “teaser” is a great word
A person or thing that tantalizes or piques curiosity by offering a small, enticing preview of something more substantial. From the verb tease (meaning to provoke, disentangle, or tantalize) and the agentive suffix -er, first recorded as a surname in the late 13th century and as a term for a wool-teasing machine in the late 15th century. Unlike a trailer, which offers a longer, narrative arc, or a tormentor, which inflicts distress, a teaser is brief, playful, and strategically withholding. It is the single evocative chord from an unreleased song, the fleeting glimpse of a title page, or the artfully blurred corner of a painting—the deliberate art of giving almost nothing and making it feel like almost enough, to kindle the ache of wanting to know.
Etymology
From tease + -er.
noun
- One who teases or pokes fun.
- A person or thing that teases.
- A preview or part of a product released in preparation of its main advertising, typically a short film, song, or quote.
- A brief portion of a television episode or video that is shown at the beginning, often before the main title sequence, meant to introduce the story and entice viewers to watch the rest of the episode.
- A kind of gull, the jaeger
- A shunt winding on field magnets for maintaining their magnetism when the main circuit is open.
- The stoker of a glassworks furnace.
- A short horizontal curtain used to mask the flies and frame the top of the inner stage opening, adjustable to the desired height.
- An assistant who accompanies the 'Obby 'Oss in the May Day festivities of Padstow, Cornwall.
- One who excites a person or an animal (see gomer) sexually without fulfilment.e.g.“A whore keeps her promises. A teaser only promises.” — 1966, Theodor Reik, The Many Faces of Sex, page 149:
- A lure, especially one without a hook, used to attract fish to another lure or lures.
- A lure used in addition to a bucktail used for fluke fishing.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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