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tease out

   Also found in: Medical, Legal, Idioms, Encyclopedia 0.01 sec.
tease  (tz)
v. teased, teas·ing, teas·es
v.tr.
1. To annoy or pester; vex.
2. To make fun of; mock playfully.
3. To arouse hope, desire, or curiosity in without affording satisfaction.
4.
a. To urge persistently; coax: teasing their mother for more candy.
b. To gain by persistent coaxing: "the New York editor who could tease great books from the unpromising woolly jumble of an author's first draft" (Ian Jack).
c. To deal with or have an effect on as if by teasing.
5. To cut (tissue, for example) into pieces for examination.
6. To disentangle and dress the fibers of (wool, for example).
7. To raise the nap of (cloth) by dressing, as with a fuller's teasel.
8. To ruffle (the hair) by combing from the ends toward the scalp for an airy, full effect.
v.intr.
To annoy or make fun of someone persistently.
n.
1.
a. The act of teasing.
b. The state of being teased.
2. One that teases, as:
a. One given to playful mocking.
b. A woman who behaves like a coquette.
c. A preliminary remark or act intended to whet the curiosity.
Phrasal Verb:
tease out
To get by or as if by untangling or releasing with a pointed tool or device: "It takes a carefully trained expert to tease out the truth" (Arthur Green).

[Middle English tesen, to comb apart, from Old English tsan.]

teasing·ly adv.

tease out
vb
(tr, adverb) to extract (information) with difficulty
Translations
? tease out
vt sep
fibreskardieren, karden; woolkrempeln, kämmen; flaxhecheln; tanglesauskämmen
(fig) significant factors etcherausdestillieren; meaningherauslesen; to tease something out of somethingetw aus etw herauspusseln (inf); he managed to tease the information out of herer hat ihr die Auskunft abgelockt


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Make sure you gently tease out the roots before planting - it'll really improve establishment.
But when they were able to dramatize a ritual that is common in all prisons--the strip search--in a comical parody by making a strip tease out of it, the offenders were able to "remove the power of their own humiliating experience of being strip searched.
Thanks to the SEC's disclosure mandate in 2003, for the first time we have fantastic data on mutual fund voting in companies in which they hold shares," says Ostrovsky, who, with Matvos, worked for several years to tease out such data and make it useable for research.
 
 
 
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