tantalizing

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tan·ta·lize

(tăn′tə-līz′)

tr.v. tan·ta·lized, tan·ta·liz·ing, tan·ta·liz·es

1. To excite by exposing something desirable that remains or is made difficult or impossible to obtain: Researchers have been tantalized by the possibility of finding a cure for the disease.

2. To be strongly attractive to; excite the senses or desire of: The aroma coming from the bakery tantalized us.

[From Latin Tantalus, Tantalus; see Tantalus.]

tan′ta·li·za′tion (-lĭ-zā′shən) n.

tan′ta·liz′er n.

tan′ta·liz′ing·ly adv.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Adj.	1.	tantalizing - arousing desire or expectation for something unattainable or mockingly out of reach; "a tantalizing taste of success" tantalising inviting - attractive and tempting; "an inviting offer"
	2.	tantalizing - very pleasantly inviting; "a tantalizing aroma"; "a tempting repast" tantalising, tempting inviting - attractive and tempting; "an inviting offer"

tantalizing

adjective

Enticingly in sight, yet often out of reach:

mouthwatering.

Translations

vábivý

fristende

tentant

tantaluszi kínokat okozó

freistandi

vábivý

baştan çıkarıcı

tantalizing

[ˈtæntəlaɪzɪŋ] ADJ [aroma, sight, offer] → tentador; [perfume] → incitante

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

tantalizing

[ˈtæntəlaɪzɪŋ] tantalising (British) adj [smell] → qui met l'eau à la bouche; [offer] → à faire saliver d'envie

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

tantalizing

adj smell, promise → verlockend, verführerisch; behaviour, glimpse also → aufreizend; he spoke with tantalizing slowness → er sprach aufreizend langsam; it is tantalizing to think that … → es ist zum Verrücktwerden, zu denken, dass … (inf)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

tantalizing

[ˈtæntəˌlaɪzɪŋ] adj (food) → stuzzicante; (idea, offer) → allettante

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

tantalize,

tantalise

(ˈtӕntəlaiz) verb

to tease or torment (a person etc) by making him want something he cannot have and by keeping it just beyond his reach. The expensive clothes in the shop-window tantalized her.

ˈtantalizing, ˈtantalising adjective

tantalizing smells in the kitchen.

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References in classic literature ?

It--well, read it yourself, and see if you, too, do not find food for frantic conjecture, for tantalizing doubts, and for a great hope.

Well, I sat there all night, listening to that tantalizing clicking, now and then moving the sending-key just to let the other end know that the instrument had been discovered.

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This done, I immediately sent for my Grandson; for, to confess the truth, I felt that all that I had seen and heard was in some strange way slipping away from me, like the image of a half-grasped, tantalizing dream, and I longed to essay my skill in making a first disciple.

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Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again and revels there awhile, still in tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario, like pious Solomon devoutly worshipping among his thousand concubines.

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Yet in this very repugnance to all his circumstances Pierre found a kind of tantalizing satisfaction.

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Where before I had had but a mild craving for food and drink, I now actually suffered for want of it, and all because of the tantalizing sight that I had had of food almost within my grasp.

The wall of my prison was of clearest glass--behind the glass were the tantalizing viands.

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An occasional dinner at Ruth's helped to keep strength in his body, though he found it tantalizing enough to refuse further helping when his appetite was raging at sight of so much food spread before it.

He was afflicted always with a gnawing restlessness, more tantalizing than in the old days before he possessed her love; for now that he did possess her love, the possession of her was far away as ever.

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There was a tantalizing suggestion always present in his mind that something was eluding him--that he should know many things which he did not know.

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Hester felt herself, in some indistinct and tantalizing manner, estranged from Pearl, as if the child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainly seeking to return to it.

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"O, Tessy!" he went on, "I CANNOT think why you are so tantalizing. Why do you disappoint me so?