Tantalize

Use this forum to discuss past Good Words.
User avatar
Dr. Goodword
Site Admin
Posts: 7419
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:28 am
Location: Lewisburg, PA
Contact:

Tantalize

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:20 pm

• tantalize •


Pronunciation: tænt-êl-aiz • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb, transitive

Meaning: To tease by offering something that is kept just out of reach of the one it is offered to.
Image
Notes: This Good Word comes from a large and happy family. The process noun is tantalization and the present participle, tantalizing, has become an adjective with all of an adjective's capacities, i.e. more tantalizing, most tantalizing, very tantalizing, including an adverb, tantalizingly. The person who engages in this occupation is a tantalizer.

In Play: This word refers to a special kind of teasing in which something is promised or offered, then almost but not quite given: "Bette Noire tantalizes Phil Anders with her sexiness just enough to keep him buying her dinner." Remember, you cannot be tantalized by anything that you can get or can get immediately: "The tantalizing contours of the new Jaguar roadster drove Rod Thrower to levels of frugality and savings he hadn't known were possible."

Word History: Today's word came from the name of Tantalos, a mythical king of Phrygia (Greece), son of Zeus. For airing the gods' dirty laundry, Tantalos was condemned to stand in water whose level dropped when he nodded to drink, and beneath fruit hanging above him that rose when he tried to bite it. His name comes from the Proto-Indo-European root telê-/tolê- "lift, support, weight". The stem of Atlantis, the long lost Greek city, is apparently based on this root word. Atlanta, the capital of the US state, Georgia, is an adaptation of this word. Since telê-/tolê- had a variant without a vowel, tlê-, we might expect Atlas to be related. However, a-tlê- would imply "no lift, no support", since a- is a negative prefix meaning "not", so this connection is dubious. (We thank Tim Ward of our Agora for suggesting today's very tantalizing Good Word.)
• The Good Dr. Goodword

User avatar
Slava
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 8040
Joined: Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:31 am
Location: Finger Lakes, NY

Re: Tantalize

Postby Slava » Mon Nov 27, 2023 8:55 am

I guess the alpha privative for Atlantis is appropriate. That's why it sank, it wasn't held up.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.


Return to “Good Word Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Ahrefs [Bot], Google [Bot] and 31 guests