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Use tantalize in a sentence

Definition of tantalize:

  • (verb) harass with persistent criticism or carping;

Sentence Examples:

He used to be asleep, perturbed and tantalized by the dream which is termed life.

Cried Agnes, shrilly, as she started off to capture the flying paper, that, eluding her, blew hither and thither in a tantalizing way, and at last, falling at the feet of Will Wentworth, was picked up by him as he came out of the hall.

You mean well, but I'm going to find out at last what all this maddening, tantalizing, unexplained and mysterious feeling that it all has occurred before really is.

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.

Then abruptly the piping stopped, ending in a queer, unfinished way that tantalized their ears for many minutes afterward, and held them motionless, spellbound, waiting for the strain to be resumed.

Why do you tantalize me so with the delights from which you debar me?

I ventured to tell her my whole heart, and instead of obscure and ambiguous answers, which some would have given to tantalize and pain one, she frankly, but modestly and timidly, told me it was mutual.

I crammed the clean snow into my mouth, but the process of melting was slow and tantalizing to a parched throat, while the chill was painful to the teeth.

Bambi fluttered about like a scarlet tanager, tantalizing Jarvis with a desire to catch her in his hand and hold her still.

Some could follow the talk and ever again endorsed the speaker in Yiddish or Russian; others listened with tantalized expressions, their brows knit, their lips moving.

The old lady was extremely violent in temper, and after irritating it to the highest pitch, or, as he termed it, "putting on the steam," he provoked her still more by his polite sarcasms and tantalizing replies.

Watched me narrowly, not having been let into the secret of my laudable resolve; and while she supposed that I had fallen into a restless slumber, I was in reality tossing about on my trundle bed, suffering the tantalizing pains of hunger.

The whole scene, with its tantalizing undercurrent of mystery, was reenacted before his inner vision.

And now, from the car windows, the passengers caught tantalizing glimpses of bright pastures with their herds of contented dairy cows, and with their white ranch buildings set in the shade of giant pepper and eucalyptus trees.

Who has not refrained from giving his opinion, to prolong her suspense, concealing his pleasure from a desire to tantalize, seeking a confession of love in her uneasiness, enjoying the fears that he can dissipate by a smile?

Dick let drive with his most tantalizing spitball.

While the meal was being disposed of Prescott told his chums of the visit during the night, and of his own share and Dave's in trying to nab the tantalizing prowler.

Then, enraged at the tantalizing smile on Prescott's face, Bert lost all control of himself.

Again and again one of Clarissa's bursts of emotion under the tantalizing treatment of her seducer loses its effect because another burst succeeds before we (and she) have recovered from the first one.

There are seasons of adversity, in which the mind, plunged in despondency and gloom, is startled and distressed by pictures of a happier time, that travel far to fool and tantalize the suffering heart.

She also had her own preserves of thought and fancy, of which she gave him tantalizing glimpses, then let fall the screening boughs; and he, who fain would see more, was content to pass on, assured that another vista would soon be revealed.

"Flipping cars," tantalizing policemen, pilfering from fruit stands are frequently the degenerate, urban forms of the old quest of, and encounter with, the game of forest and jungle.

Some instinct told her that in his home circle he would probably have been accustomed to worthy, punctual women, and, while she enjoyed tantalizing him, she knew that he had a nasty temper and could not be provoked too far.

She had come because he was a tantalizing object, because she could not credit his invincibility, which was a challenge to her.

Soon beefsteak was broiling over the fire, potatoes were frying in the pan and the tantalizing fragrance of coffee filled the air.

If little men, fiercely effervescent and childishly inconsequential, attempted to reply to him or sought to engage him in debate, he simply answered them with silence, or that tantalizing smile.

The herder was submissive and placating, and permitted Happy Jack to appropriate the conventional garb of a male human, the while coffee and bacon were maddening his hunger with their tantalizing odor.

They occasionally saw numbers of the antelopes, and tried every art to get within shot; but the timid animals were more than commonly wild, and after tantalizing the hungry hunters for a time, bounded away beyond all chance of pursuit.

Truly, had the idol possessed a soul under his knotty ribs, how tantalizing to hold so glorious a mouthful without the power of deglutition.

In the darkness he heard chiming voices, wheedling and tantalizing.

Tantalizing, it lay like a shadow, illusive, unattainable as the "forgotten isles."

How terribly tantalizing, after their exhausting march and still more exhausting return, after having killed and eaten all their camels but two, and all their horses, after making discoveries that unlocked to the world the vast interior of this hitherto unknown continent, to find that they were just too late to be saved!

Did you ever, in all your life, see such a beautiful, bewitching, tantalizing, ensnaring face as mine is?

Her hair was shining darkly in the sun and the shorter locks were blowing about her face in a downright tantalizing fashion; they made a man want to brush them back and kiss the spot they were caressing so wantonly.

And first to that most tantalizing of human regions, India; where you would expect something just now from the cyclic backwash.

They danced about him in the most grotesque and frantic manner, screeching, yelling, and indulging in all sorts of tantalizing gestures and signs at Simpson, who was unable to resist them or help himself.

They may be right; but, after all, that which has felt the tropic sun is for the tropics, and to grow under the tantalizing sunshine of the north, which lights but does not warm, it must have glass, and shelter from the cold.

The man leaned over, and clasped the little gloved hand that lay in the girl's lap; and Elizabeth felt the great joy that had tantalized her for these three years in dreams and visions settle down about her in beautiful reality.

The sight of the Mexican force in the afternoon became absolutely tantalizing.

How frequently the path of the music machine crossed the path of the van, no one knew so well perhaps as Philip, but Philip at times was tantalizing and mysterious and only evidenced his knowledge in peculiar and singularly aggravating ways.

And only yesterday I saw you corner a moccasin and tantalize him until the chances were a hundred to one that he'd get you, and then you blazed your gun down his throat and walked away laughing.

Altogether, she's more Spanish than Indian, I take it, though she's a tantalizing combination of each in instinct.

Putting all care behind them, the young folks ran down the hill, with a very lively dog gamboling beside them, and took a delightfully tantalizing survey of the external charms of the big tent.

For anything like a drinkable beverage the traveler has to trust to the skies, which give or withhold their stores with a caprice that is truly tantalizing.

This tantalizing vision of a swift fulfillment of his prayers seemed to Philip Vaughan even less endurable than his previous apprehensions.

For a while the vision hung before him, tantalizing him, maddening him, eluding him.

Ever and anon I paused and looked round with delight; but before reaching the summit I tantalized myself with a few hundred yards of ascent, to treasure the glories in store for the pause, the turn, and the view.

From a description on this chart we learn that during five days and nights the Spaniards stood in sight of those tantalizing verdant shores, unable to effect a landing, threading their way through perilous reefs and over dangerous shoals.

She did not even glance at him, but leaned back on the chair, swinging her foot and looking as insolently tantalizing as possible.

A friend from Natal assured me that he had seen one on the table of the Director of the Gardens at Durban; but it proved to be one of those terrestrial orchids, so lovely and so tantalizing to us, with which South Africa abounds.

To-day she tempts and eludes, she tantalizes and mocks and flies her thousands of wooers who follow her to the rocks, seeking her with back-breaking toil and dreaming ever of her by day and by night.

And she softly laughed as she peeped up at the poor fellow from beneath those sweeping lashes, with the premeditated purpose of tantalizing him, I suppose.

Then that half-upturned face riveted his attention and seemed to awaken a vague, dreamy memory he found himself unable to localize; it reminded him of some other face he had known, tantalizing from its dim indistinctness.

Brown set his teeth half savagely, the little witch tantalizing him with the swiftness of her speech, the coy archness of her manner.

The tantalizing tone and manner nerved him; he grasped the white hand resting invitingly on the grass, and held it firmly within his own.

Ever since Ralph Evans had remarked, with a tantalizing toss of his handsome head, that "no game fellow would try to skate on anything but 'Jolly Ramblers,'" Tom had yearned, with an inexpressible longing, for a pair of these wonderful skates.

They possessed a rare charm, caught from a trick the eyelids had of drooping slowly and then suddenly and unexpectedly lifting to reveal the wide, bright depths, that half-concealed, half-revealed power, which is so tantalizing.

She met his eagerness with that smiling, tantalizing passivity which he had so much admired but which this time was tinged strongly with a communicated desire.

Tantalized by the sight of the toothsome gastronomic products, the two Bohemians resembled, during this contemplation, that person in a Spanish romance who caused hams to shrink only by looking at them.

On a bed of red coals a thick iron pan held a large pone of cornbread, and the tantalizing aroma of coffee drew attention to a steaming coffeepot on a trivet in one corner of the hearth.

He did it from pure selfishness, and because he was determined to possess the most illusive, tantalizing, elegant, and utterly unmoral little creature that the sun shone upon.

By herself Jezebel was tantalizing enough; but in combination with the creature who stood laughing on the threshold, the sight was so bewildering that it not only overwhelmed but intoxicated.

This predilection of his probably accounts for the obscurity or tantalizing indirectness of his writings.

Every happy paterfamilias in his pew tantalized me, and the whole atmosphere of the place seemed so much better suited to every one else than me that I came away hating holidays worse than ever.

The tantalizing minx knew very well that Miss Thorne could only judge by observation.

Knowing very well what she was about, the little girl kept up a tantalizing chatter that was maddening in the extreme to the defeated plotter.

The denial of a future life introduces discord, grief, and despair in every direction, and, by making each step of advanced culture the ascent to a wider survey of tantalizing glory and experienced sorrow, as well as the preparation for a greater fall and a sadder loss, turns faithful affection and heroic thought into "blind furies slinging flame."

What made this result more tantalizing was that the very pains we had taken to collect the data proved, by chance, to have made the choice worse.

Doggedly he fought his way around and through the swampy underbrush and presently stood blinking his delighted eyes in a little natural clearing that was a glorious climax to all the tantalizing coquetry of the creek.

Then, presently, he threw oil the cloak of bitterness which sat so ill on him, and, resuming his usual kindliness and benignity of manner, succeeded in making himself unconsciously tantalizing.

Again and again he called, groping with outstretched hands through the Stygian blackness of the room, his nostrils assailed, and his brain tantalized by the delicate effluvia that had first assured him that his mate had been within this very room.

Billiard calmly pocketed the article in dispute, and seeing that Irene was recovering under the heroic treatment of her amateur nurses, he seated himself in tantalizing silence upon the saw-horse, as if to enjoy the scene he had created.

Later at dinner when she offered him the delicious cream biscuits which she had baked, he remarked with his most tantalizing air of male superiority, "I'd rather see a woman make biscuits like these than solve the knottiest problem in algebra."

I wanted to know every event of his private life, and this abridgment was very tantalizing.

A mystery as tantalizing as it was seductive, together with a faint touch of scandal which some had contrived to blow upon her name, though not enough really to injure her as yet, sufficed to give a spice to the conversation when she was its subject.

Now and then we were tantalized by brief intervals of bright skies; but they were again quickly overcast and shrouded in by more intense darkness, while the temperature fell to a degree of chilliness unusual in this latitude.

There lives no man who at some period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire to tantalize a listener by circumlocution.

A tantalizing thing to meet a disembodied voice like that, a low laugh, a mystery!

The dance, to a new and enchanting air, was prolonged, and he died many deaths as he watched her, catching tantalizing glimpses of her face only to lose it again.

Moreover, it was borne upon me that from somewhere near me came the sound of running, gurgling water; tantalizing and maddening me in my pain and agony.

It may be, if the truth were known, that the maiden found the situation almost as trying as her lover, for there was a most tantalizing element of uncertainty in it, and uncertainty is especially grievous to the feminine heart.

To tantalize arises from the mythical perpetual frustration of Tantalus in the Greek story.

If he was surprised at the prodigality he made no comment, but at intervals some tantalizing word from him entangled her in another exchange; and at each encounter of wits, just enough fear tempered her resentment to make her irresolute.

The vessels lay becalmed in the middle of the ocean, displaying a tantalizing lack of sympathy with the frantic helplessness of the owners on shore.

Many stories are told of its surrounding a coiled sleeping rattlesnake with strips of cactus and then tantalizing its victim until, baffled in every attempt to get away, the snake finally inflicts a deadly bite on itself.

Despair had taken possession of her; the magic fabric of delight melted away, or only gleamed to tantalize, at an unreachable distance.

As I had examined many directories and found none that gave her uncle's name as living in the city, I had to conclude that the owner of the Pomeranian was her hostess and that I was the victim of a trick of fate which had allowed her to flash across my path and disappear, which had allowed me to have but this tantalizing glimpse.

Tantalized, in the first place, by the uncertainty surrounding his prospective employment, he was now confronted by a predicament which threatened to jeopardize a vital adjunct to his personal appearance.

With tantalizing persistency the recollection stuck to him, and, equally tantalizingly, he was unable to recall his previous acquaintance with it.

Wreaths of blue smoke curled upward lazily from the kitchen chimney, and from the dooryard came the most tantalizing odors of chicken frying, coffee boiling, and fresh doughnuts.

It was most infernally tantalizing.

It was not so much the visionary whiff of Peggy Lacey's supper, however, that challenged his courage: it was Peggy Lacey's letter in the pack on his back, and Peggy Lacey's suggestive packet, that tantalized him to reckless behavior.

His mind, once freed from his will's leash, would leap, unwontedly active, into the old groove, setting before him creations that tantalized him with their beauty and vigor and made him yearn to be at work upon them.

Now sprang up the tantalizing suggestion, that, as Lady Vivian had never seen Madeleine, the latter had presented herself under a feigned name, for the sake of concealing her rank, and baffling the friends who sought to discover her abode.

The odors, so pleasant in his nostrils and yet so tantalizing, reminded him that he had with him the haunch of venison, of which a large portion was yet left.

Roger suddenly saw her not as the tantalizing, unreal, mystic thing of the twilit grove, but as a little human creature, exquisitely pretty in her young-moon beauty, longing for companionship.

He dreamed, but only discouraging, tantalizing dreams, and the figure his magic summoned up was not the angelic one, but invariably the elfish eyes and star-pointing nose of Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan.

He faced Whirlwind toward the group, held him motionless, and, swinging his rifle over his head, indulged in a series of tantalizing shouts that were anything but soothing to the chief and his friends.

The players will use every means of tantalizing the hunter; for instance, when he is at a safe distance, they will hold the slipper up with a shout, or even throw it to some other person in the circle, or tap the floor with it.

The sport of the game consists very largely in tantalizing Puss by making many exchanges, or, on the other hand, in Puss suddenly dashing for some vacant place without giving previous evidence of knowing of it.