| 释义 |
▪ I. † kittle, n. Obs. rare.
[app. shortened from kitling.]
A kitten.
1566Drant Horace, Sat. v. (1567) M, I knowe who plaies the catte, and howe her ioly kittles mouses.
▪ II. kittle, a. orig. Sc. and north. dial.|ˈkɪt(ə)l|
Also 6 kittil(l.
[f. kittle v.1; the use of the simple verbal stem as an adjective is unusual.]
Ticklish; difficult to deal with, requiring great caution or skill; unsafe to meddle with; as to which one may easily go wrong or come to grief; risky, precarious, ‘nice’, delicate.
1560[implied in kittleness: see below]. 1568Satir. Poems Reform. xlvi. 60 Scho will be kittill of hir dok. 1571Ibid. xxvii. 22 Thow may hir tyne in turning of a tyde; Cast weill thy courss, thow hes ane kittle cwir. 1596Jas. VI Let. to Earl Huntley in Spottiswood Hist. Ch. Scot. (1655) 438 If your conscience be so kittle, as it cannot permit you. 1600in Pitcairn Crim. Trials II. 284 My brother is ‘kittle to shoe behind’, and dare not enterprise for fear. 1641Best Farm. Bks. (Surtees) 80 If an ewe bee kittle on her yower, or unkinde to her lambe. 1721Ramsay To Dalhousie 22 Till frae his kittle post he fa'. 1728― Rob. Richy & Sandy 78 Kittle points of law. 1765A. Dickson Treat. Agric. (ed. 2) 232 note, Every common plowman will tell you, that, when the plough- irons are short, his plough goes kittle. By this he means, that it is easily turned aside, and is difficult to manage. 1815Scott Guy M. xxii, I maun ride, to get to the Liddel or it be dark, for your Waste has but a kittle character. 1818― Hrt. Midl. xii, These are kittle times..when the people take the power of life and death out of the hands of the rightful magistrate into their ain rough grip. 1830Blackw. Mag. XXVII. 829 The kittler a question is, the mair successfully do you grapple wi't. 1869C. Gibbon R. Gray xiv, Metaphors are kittle things to handle. 1890Truth 11 Sept. 526/2 Cleopatra is a kittle character for a London theatre, unless played by some French actress who has no character to lose.
Hence ˈkittleness.
1560Rolland Seven Sages 185 Ye may persaue..Of wemen the gret brukilnes And of thair kynde the kittilnes.
▪ III. kittle, v.1 Now dial. and chiefly Sc.|ˈkɪt(ə)l|
Forms: (1 vbl. n. kitelung, 4 vbl. n. kitlynge), 5 kytill, -ylle, (? kitell, ketil), 6 kyttyl(l, -il, kittil(l, kitill, (3rd sing. kytlis, vbl. n. kitling), 7– kittle.
[ME. kytylle, kityll; cf. late OE. n. kitelung, ME. kitlynge; cognate with OS. kitilôn (MDu. kitelen, kittelen, ketelen, Du. kittelen, kietelen), OHG. chizzilôn, chuzzilôn (MHG. kitzeln, kütz-, mod.G. kitzeln), ON. kitla (Sw. kittla); not known outside Teutonic, and generally supposed to be of onomatopœic 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 n. kitlynge in Hampole, c 1340, be of Norse origin. But the n. kitelung occurring once in a late OE. gloss (c 1000), naturally suggests an OE. n. *kitelian, which could only stand for *cytelian, parallel to the OHG. form in chu-. An original OE. *citelian = OS. citilôn, would not have been written with k, and would have given ME. *chittle. It thus remains uncertain whether kittle, the date and locality of which are consistent with Norse derivation, is of Scandinavian or OE. origin.]
1. trans. To tickle (in physical sense).
c1000[see kittling]. 1483Cath. Angl. 204/2 To kytylle, titillare. 1483Caxton Gold. Leg. 265/2 She..felt hym and ketild hym. 1564Sir J. Melvil Mem. (Bann. Club 1827) 120 Sche culd not refrain from putting hir hand in his nek to kittle him. c1575Balfour's Practicks (1754) 509 Gif..the band quhairwith thay ar bund tuich or kittle his sair bak. 1683Kennett tr. Erasm. on Folly 22 How a man must hug, and dandle, and kittle..his bed-fellow. 1822Galt Steam-boat x. 250 Kittling him in the ribs with his fore-finger. a1825Forby Voc. E. Anglia, Kittle, to tickle. 1855Robinson Whitby Gloss., To kittle, to tickle.
b. transf. Used of actions humorously or ironically likened to tickling, as the friction of the strings of a fiddle with a bow, a stab with a weapon, etc.
1785Burns To W. Simpson v, I kittle up my rustic reed. 1814Scott Wav. xxix, ‘Her ain sell’, replied Callum, ‘could..kittle his quarters wi' her skene-occle’. 1820Blackw. Mag. July 386/1, I wad kittle the purse-proud carles under the fifth rib wi' the bit cauld steel. 1824Scott Redgauntlet Let. x, The best fiddler that ever kittled thairm with horse-hair. 1828Craven Dial. s.v., ‘To kittle the fire’, to stir it.
2. fig. To stir with feeling or emotion, usually pleasurable: to excite, rouse; to ‘tickle’.
a1340[see kittling]. 1513Douglas æneis v. xiv. 2 Glaidnes and confort..Begouth to kittill Eneas thochtfull hart. Ibid. xii. Prol. 229 Quhen new curage kytlis all gentill hartis. 1534Hacket Let. to Hen. VIII in St. Papers VII. 556 Able to cawse the Kyng of Denmark to kyttyll Inglonde with out any infrangyng of peace betwix the Emperour and Your Hyghnys. 1725Ramsay Gent. Sheph. ii. i, I've gather'd news will kittle your heart wi' joy. 1819Scott Br. Lamm. xiii, He kittles the lugs o' a silly auld wife wi' useless clavers. 1873Murdoch Doric Lyre 97 (E.D.D.) The corn-riggs kittle the farmer's e'e.
3. To puzzle with a question, a riddle, etc.
1824Scott St. Ronan's xv, To kittle the clergymen with doubtful points of controversy. a1832― in Lockhart's Scott (1839) VII. 195 [To a remark..that he seemed to know something of the words of every song..he replied] I daresay it wad be gay ill to kittle me in a Scots one at any rate.
▪ IV. ˈkittle, v.2 Now Sc. and north. dial.
Also 6 kyt(t)ell.
[perh. a back formation from kitling: but cf. Norw. kjetla, in the same sense.]
1. = kitten v.
1530Palsgr. 599/1 Whan your catte kytelleth, I praye you, let me have a kytlynge. 1611Cotgr., Chatonner, to kittle. 17..in Scott Minstr. Scot. Bord. II. 285 (Jam.) The hare sall kittle on my hearth stane. 1825Brockett, Kittle, to bring forth kittens.
2. fig. (intr. and pass.) To be engendered or produced; to come into being.
1823Galt Entail II. xxx. 282, I would be nane surprised if something had kittled between Jamie and a Highland lassie. 1824Scott St. Ronan's ii, Before ony of them were born, or ony sic vapouring fancies kittled in their cracked brains. 1827J. Wilson Noct. Ambr. Wks. 1855 I. 277 The cursedest kintra that ever was kittled.
▪ V. kittle
obs. form of kettle n. |