Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Tickling |
TicklingAdjective1. Exciting by touching lightly so as to cause laughter or twitching movements. Noun1. The act of tickling. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "tickling" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1350. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Tickling is the act of touching a part of the body lightly so as to cause laughter or twitching movements. It can give a mixed feeling of pleasure and displeasure.The word evolved from the Middle English tikelen, perhaps frequentative of ticken, to touch lightly.
The sensation of surprise elicited by tickling protects against crawling animals and insects, such as spiders, mosquitos, scorpions or beetles, which may be why it evolved in many animals, including rats. However, the continued laughter produced by tickling cannot be explained with this evolutionary survival advantage alone.
Tickling is almost certainly a form of social interaction. One feature of tickling is that we do not laugh when we tickle ourselves, only when other people tickle us. This implies that the brain may have a different mechanism for responding to the two types of tickling. Charles Darwin theorised on the link between tickling and social relations, arguing that tickling provokes laughter through the anticipation of pleasure. If a stranger tickles a child without any preliminaries, catching the child by surprise, the likely result will be not laughter but withdrawal and displeasure. Darwin also noticed that for tickling to be effective, you must not know the precise point of stimulation in advance, and reasoned that this is why you cannot effectively tickle yourself.
Researcher Sarah-Jayne Blakemore confirmed Darwin's propositions by investigating how the brain distinguishes between sensations we create for ourselves and sensations others create for us. Blackmore used robotic arms to tickle people and found them to be as effective as real people in provoking laughter. When her subjects used a joystick to control the tickling robot, however, they could not make themselves laugh. This suggests that when a person tries to tickle him- or herself, the cerebellum sends to the somatosensory cortex precise information on the position of the tickling target and therefore what sensation to expect. Apparently some cortical mechanism then decreases or inhibits the tickling sensation.
Washoe, a chimpanzee who learned to use the American Sign Language, has been reported to frequently make the sign for "tickle me" to researchers, similar to children who enjoy being tickled.
The idiom tickled pink means "pleased or delighted".
Other references
Blakemore S-J, DM Wolpert & CD Frith (1998). Central cancellation of self-produced tickle sensation. Nature Neuroscience 1, 635-640.
Carlsson K, P Petrovic, S Skar, KM Petersson & M Ingvar (2000). Neural processing in anticipation of a sensory stimulus. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 12, 691-703.
Berk, L.S., Tan, S.A., Fry, W.F., Napier, B.J., Lee, J.W., Hubbard, R.W., Lewis, J.E. and Eby, W.C. Neuroendocrine and stress hormone changes during mirthful laughter. Am. J. Med. Sci., 298:390-396, 1989.
Boiten, F. Autonomic response patterns during voluntary facial action. Psychophysiol., 33:123-131, 1996.
Ekman, P., Levenson, R.W. and Friesen, W.V. Autonomic nervous system activity distinguishes among emotions. Science, 221:1208-1210, 1983.
Fried, I., Wilson, C.L., MacDonald, K.A. and Behnke, E.J. Electric current stimulates laughter. Nature, 391:650, 1998.
Fry Jr., W.F. The physiologic effects of humor, mirth, and laughter. JAMA, 267:1857-1858, 1992.
Yoon, C.K. Don't make me laugh: scientists tackle tickling. J. NIH Research, 9:34-35, 1997.
External Links
- Website detailing why a people cannot tickle themselves
- Telegraph (UK) Article on "robot tickling experiment"
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Tickling."
Synonyms: TicklingSynonyms: tingling (adj), titillating (adj), tickle (n), titillation (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Tickling |
| English words defined with "tickling": paraesthesia, paresthesia ♦ tickle, titillation, Titillative. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I hope your fingers aren't tickling my ivory-handled Colt (Silverado; writing credit: Lawrence Kasdan; Mark Kasdan) I have always imagined that the blade, coming down, causes no more than a slight tickling sensation on the back of the neck (Charade; writing credit: Peter Stone; Marc Behm) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Torture of Tickling Tongues (1935) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
 |
| "Barbers Brush" by Neil Cummins Commentary: "Rather nice for tickling the back of the neck." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce, James | But the tickling of the skin of his neck made his mind raw and red. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Initial symptoms usually include localized lower back pain, sudden paresthesias (abnormal sensations such as burning, tickling, pricking, or tingling) in the legs, sensory loss, and paraparesis (partial paralysis of the legs). (references) | |
Although the causes of peripheral neuropathy are diverse, they produce common symptoms including weakness, numbness, paresthesia (abnormal sensations such as burning, tickling, pricking or tingling) and pain in the arms, hands, legs and/or feet. A large number of cases are of unknown cause. (references) | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Tickling" is generally used as a lexical verb (-ing form) -- approximately 93.42% of the time. "Tickling" is used about 76 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 93.42% | 71 | 39,674 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 5.26% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Noun (singular) | 1.32% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 76 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "tickling": tickling feeling. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "tickling": rib-tickling. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
tickling | 3,191 | clip tickling video | 50 |
foot tickling | 936 | french tickling | 45 |
forum media tickling | 488 | belly button tickling | 44 |
tickling story | 221 | tickling bondage | 43 |
tickling video | 212 | tickling tmf | 42 |
clip tickling | 163 | foot tickling story | 39 |
forum tickling | 156 | paradise tickling | 38 |
picture tickling | 112 | bare foot tickling | 38 |
female foot tickling | 102 | celebrity tickling | 37 |
tickling cartoon | 99 | armpit tickling | 36 |
media tickling | 95 | female tickling | 36 |
extreme tickling | 78 | links tickling | 35 |
kid tickling | 72 | real tickling | 34 |
male tickling | 70 | teen tickling | 33 |
tickling woman | 70 | fetish tickling | 33 |
foot tickling clip | 70 | male foot tickling | 32 |
f m tickling | 60 | photo tickling | 32 |
girl tickling | 53 | boy tickling | 31 |
anime tickling | 52 | tickling girl foot | 30 |
tickling pic | 51 | tickling kid foot | 29 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "tickling"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | klikosje (tickle, titillation), gudulisje (tickle, titillation). (various references) | |
Arabic | وخز (jab, jabbing, pang, prickle, sting, thrusting, twinge), دغدغة (tickle, titillation). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | гъделичкане (tickle). (various references) | |
Chinese | 发痒 (ITCH, Tickled). (various references) | |
Danish | titillatio, kildren. (various references) | |
Finnish | kutku (itch, tickle). (various references) | |
French | titillation (titillation), picotement (tingle), chatouilles (tickle, tickles), chatouillement. (various references) | |
German | kitzelnd (titillating). (various references) | |
Greek | γαργάλισμα (tickle, titillation), γαργαλίζων. (various references) | |
Hebrew | דגדוג (titillation), דגדגני. (various references) | |
Hungarian | csiklandozás (tickle, titillation). (various references) | |
Indonesian | gelitikan. (various references) | |
Italian | titillamento, solletico (tickle). (various references) | |
Korean | 간질임. (various references) | |
Manx | kickley (tickle, titillate, titillation), kickilagh, doarn-eeastagh. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | icklingtay.(various references) | |
Romanian | gâdilitor (titillating). (various references) | |
Russian | щекотка (tickle, titillation). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | svrab (itch), golicanje (tickle, titillation). (various references) | |
Spanish | cosquilleo (titillation), cosquillas (tickle). (various references) | |
Swedish | kittling (tickle, titillation). (various references) | |
Turkish | gıdıklama (titillation). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | лоскотання (tickle, titillation). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | sự làm cho buồn buồn, sự cù (tickle, titillation), làm cho ngưa ngứa, làm cho buồn buồn. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "tickling": stickling. (additional references) | |
| |
"Tickling" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Micklin, Rickling, Tsikulin. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-g-i-i-k-l-n-t" | |
-1 letter: kilting, kitling, licking, ticking. | |
-2 letters: citing, kiting, liking, tiling. | |
-3 letters: cling, clink, glint, icing, licit. | |
-4 letters: clit, gilt, gink, inti, kiln, kilt, king, knit, lick, ling, link, lint, nick, tick, tiki, ting. | |
-5 letters: cig, gin, git, ick, ilk, ink, kin, kit, lin, lit, nil, nit, tic, til, tin. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-g-i-i-k-l-n-t" | |
+1 letter: stickling, trickling. | |
+2 letters: strickling. | |
+3 letters: backlisting, bootlicking, cocktailing, outslicking, politicking, singlestick, stockpiling. | |
+4 letters: backlighting, blacklisting, interlocking, locksmithing, singlesticks, walkingstick. | |
+5 letters: blacksmithing, locksmithings, lockstitching, multitracking, stickhandling, walkingsticks. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Fiction | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Anagrams 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
