ticklish
pronunciation
How to pronounce ticklish in British English:
UK [ˈtɪklɪʃ]
How to pronounce ticklish in American English:
US [ˈtɪklɪʃ]
-
- Adjective:
- difficult to handle; requiring great tact
Word Origin
- ticklish (adj.)
- "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.
Example
- 1. This presented a ticklish etiquette problem .
- 2. Military reform will require politically ticklish choices about which installations to shut down .
- 3. Nowhere is the politics of reform more ticklish than in the case of state-owned enterprises .
- 4. It is a ticklish task , since mandarin characters can have both phonetic and descriptive meanings .
- 5. The ticklish catalan question appears to have been answered , with a bit of fudging , through a new autonomy statute .