Etymology: apparently shortened < kitling n. and adj.

Etymology: < kittle v.¹; the use of the simple verbal stem as an adjective is unusual.

Etymology: Middle English kytylle, kityll; compare late Old English noun kitelung, Middle English kitlynge; cognate with Old Saxon kitilôn (Middle Dutch kitelen, kittelen, ketelen, Dutch kittelen, kietelen), Old High German chizzilôn, chuzzilôn (Middle High German kitzeln, kütz-, modern German kitzeln), Old Norse kitla (Swedish kittla); not known outside Germanic, and generally supposed to be of onomatopoeic origin, with a double form in kit- and kut-. The history of the word in English is not clear. The verb itself is not found before the date of the Catholicon, 1483; and it is now used dialectally from Scotland to East Anglia. Hence it might, as well as the noun kitlynge in Hampole, c1340, be of Norse origin. But the noun kitelung occurring once in a late Old English gloss (c1000), naturally suggests an Old English noun *kitelian, which could only stand for *cytelian, parallel to the Old High German form in chu-. An original Old English *citelian = Old Saxon citilôn, would not have been written with k, and would have given Middle English *chittle. It thus remains uncertain whether kittle, the date and locality of which are consistent with Norse derivation, is of Scandinavian or Old English origin.

Etymology: Perhaps a back-formation < kitling n. and adj.: but compare Norwegian kjetla, in the same sense.