Other forms: teased, teasing, teases
To tease someone is to make fun of them on purpose, in a way you both know is not serious. Your brother teases you about a haircut; a friend teases you about how long you take to park. The whole point is that it stops before it hurts.
Tease also means holding something just out of reach — you tease a dog with a biscuit you never hand over, and a trailer teases the ending of a film without showing it. A person who does it a lot is a tease, and the word can be affectionate or sharp depending on the face you make when you say it. To tease something out is to work it free slowly: knots in wet hair, or the truth out of a witness. Watch the line between teasing and mocking — teasing assumes affection, mocking does not. Anyone who says 'I was only teasing' is claiming the first and hoping you did not notice the second.
1verbteaseTo make playful fun of someone, meaning no real harm.
“The other drivers teased him for parking so carefully.”
synonyms: rib, kid
2verbprovokeTo provoke someone by offering something and holding it back.
“Stop teasing the cat with that piece of string.”
3verbpullTo pull something apart or draw it out gently, a strand at a time.
“She teased the tangled wool apart with her fingers.”
4nounnounA person who teases people.
“Don't listen to him, he's a terrible tease.”
Tease goes back to Old English tǣsan and, behind that, a Proto-West Germanic verb *taisijan meaning to separate, tug, shred. It was what you did to wool: pulling the fibres apart before spinning. The word kept the tugging and lost the wool — a tease pulls at you a little at a time.
Proto-West Germanic
*taisijan — to separate, tug, shred
Old English
tǣsan — to tease
Middle English
tesen
English, today
tease
From Middle English tesen, from Old English tǣsan (“to tease”), from Proto-West Germanic taisijan (“to separate, tug, shred”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA