ticklern.¹

1707 tr. M.-C. d'Aulnoy Diverting Wks. 452 One of those ticklers of Cats-guts that march before the Milk-women upon May-day.

1736 Ld. Chesterfield Fogg's Jrnl. No. 377. ⁋5 If, by chance, there be some few unhappy enough not to find ticklers, or some ticklers clumsy enough not find business, they comfort themselves at least with self-titillation.

1948 N.Y. Age 9 Oct. 2/7 The Round Mr. Fletcher Butler, the distinguished Chicago piano tickler.]

1962 Down Beat 16 Aug. 26/3 He had a magnificent attack..combined with the gaiety and shy humor that one looks for in a true ‘tickler’.

1975 J. McClure Snake vi. 86 Me? I'm the tickler. Pianist. Y'know.

1825 J. Jamieson Etymol. Dict. Sc. Lang. Suppl. at Tickle Tickler, any thing puzzling.

1970 New Yorker 3 Oct. 34/3 The new lineup of teams can be easily remembered with the aid of a handy mental ‘tickler’.

1680 C. Cotton Compl. Gamester (ed. 2) 4 The Knave and Rascal will violate his trust for profit, and lend him..a Tickler shall do his business.

1840 T. C. Haliburton Clockmaker 3rd Ser. xi. 155 I..have half a mind to give you a tickler in the ribs.

1765 E. Thompson Meretriciad (ed. 6) 27 The tickler you must use, And as you flog the Vet'rans, flog the Muse.

1825 Sporting Mag. 15 349 John now practised often with the ‘ticklers’; nor was it long before he attained the reputation of a noted hand at single stick.

1861 C. Dickens Great Expectations I. ii. 14 Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.

1839 Civil Engineer & Architect's Jrnl. 2 118/1 A new and important manufacture..in the hosiery trade, in making lace caps from the stocking-frame, by the aid of the jack tickler machine.

1892 Labour Comm. Gloss. Ticklers, four small points firmly fixed into a piece of wood which are pressed upon the eyes of the needles and remove the stitches in the hosiery industry. This is the operation of fashioning.

1875 W. D. Parish Dict. Sussex Dial. Tickler, an iron pin used by brewers to take a bung out of a cask.

1881 G. F. Jackson Shropshire Word-bk. Suppl. Tickler, a slender steel rod..used for stirring the fire.

1891 T. Anderton Lett. from Country House 237 They poke out the gleeds at the bottom with the tickler, and put them at the top with the tongs.

1906 Daily Chron. 14 Nov. 9/3 The carburettor can be flooded without lifting the bonnet, by operating a ‘tickler’ situated outside the bonnet.

1889 Harper's Mag. Aug. 388/2 Whiskey..was not usually bought by the drink, but by the tickler..a bottle..holding a half-pint.

1844 C. Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit xxxiii. 390 A sword-stick, which he called his ‘Tickler’; and a great knife, which..he called ‘Ripper’.

1808 J. Ballantyne Let. in S. Smiles Publisher & Friends (1891) I. v. 108 A review, termed by Mr. Jeffrey a tickler, is to appear.

1839 C. F. Briggs Adventures Harry Franco I. I don't see that I have got your name down in my tickler.

1848 J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms Tickler, a common name among merchants and bankers for a book in which a register of notes or debts is kept for reference.

1905 E. E. Calkins & R. Holden Art Mod. Advertising 351 A tickler is any small piece of printed matter sent out to keep open a prospective sale on the part of the inquirer.

1846 Ld. Palmerston Let. 27 Sept. in H. L. E. Bulwer Life Palmerston (1874) III. viii. 299 Do not mention it to anyone; but the Queen has written the King of the French a tickler in answer to a letter he sent her.

1902 G. W. E. Russell Onlooker's Notebook xiv. 102 An Illustrious Personage wrote to the Dean [of Windsor] suggesting that, as Mr. Gladstone was engaged in violent attacks upon the Government, it might be better if his visits to the Deanery were discontinued. ‘Whereupon,’ said the stout old Dean..‘I wrote her a tickler’.

1922 A. C. Lescarboura Radio for Everybody i. 32 This small coil is frequently called the ‘tickler’ or reaction.

1931 J. A. Moyer & J. F. Wostrel Radio Handbk. vii. 335 A tickler..usually more than makes up for this decrease in detection coefficient by increasing the strength of the impressed radio signal.

1948 A. L. Albert Radio Fund. x. 380 In radio, the feed-back coil of an oscillator is sometimes called a tickler.

1904 Sat. Rev. 18 June 784/1 Patriots, who with whisky, rattles, ticklers, Union Jacks and patriotic melody..celebrated the relief [of Mafeking].

1929 F. C. Bowen Sea Slang 141 Ticklers,..is also a name for cigarettes made from the monthly issue of naval tobacco.

1964 J. Hale Grudge Fight i. ii. 29 Brooks rolls and lights a tickler.

1977 G. Melly Rum, Bum & Concertina iv. 54 ‘Tickler’ is naval slang for duty-free tobacco.