tickle someone's fancy

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

tickle someone's fancy (third-person singular simple present tickles someone's fancy, present participle tickling someone's fancy, simple past and past participle tickled someone's fancy)

1. To amuse, entertain, or appeal to someone; to stimulate someone's imagination in a favorable manner.
   • 1839, Charles Dickens, chapter 11, in Nicholas Nickleby:

     But the notion of Ralph Nickleby having directed it to be done, tickled his fancy so much, that he could not refrain from cracking all his ten fingers in succession.

   • 1895 October 1, “‘The People’ Name Judge Gaynor”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 July 2009, page 2:

     Mr. Adams, who loves a joke, and is not a lunatic, notwithstanding his opening words, tickled their fancy for an hour with quotations from Shakespeare and the editorial columns of The Brooklyn Eagle.

   • 1969, Dylan Thomas, Adventures in the Skin Trade‎^[1], →ISBN, page 16:

     There will not be any Nancy to tickle my fancy in a kitchen full of handerkerchiefs and beckoning, unmade beds.

   • 2005 April 9, Sam Marlowe, "Vagina Monologues" (theatre review), Times Online (UK) (retrieved 29 July 2009):

     If you’re looking for something that tickles your fancy, and now and then even stirs your soul, this just might hit the G-spot.

See also

• strike someone's fancy
• take someone's fancy
• catch someone's fancy