tickle-footed
English
editEtymology
editFrom the obsolete adjective tickle (“unsteady”).
Adjective
edit- (obsolete or poetic) having unsure or slippery footing, or inconstant.
- c. 1613–1616, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Scornful Lady, a Comedy”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
- You were ever tickle-footed, and would not truss round.
- 1824, Gilmour, Or The Last Lockinge:
- tickle-footed wanton
- 1987, Margaret Paige, Ride My River with Me:
- But what goes on
Between a flower
And tickle-footed
Honey bee Is still a mystery
- a. 1942, Ogden Nash, Summer Serenade:
- When the thunder stalks the sky,
When tickle-footed walks the fly,
When shirt is wet and throat is dry,
Look, my darling, thats July.
References
edit- “tickle-footed”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.