Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a menial servant.

a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: tease a slave at work.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1821		Flash Dict.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.

2. one who can easily be teased.

1859

E. Eden Semi-Detached House (1979) 149: We girls love a lark! It’s the men who are stiff. / Why that little Lord John’s such a tease, / If I ask him to dance, he turns off in a tiff, / Law, Sir! that is ease! that is ease!

3. one who likes to tease.

1853		Dickens Bleak House (1991) 416: What a tease you are!
1917		R. Lardner ‘The Water Cure’ in Gullible’s Travels 157: ‘Don’t mind him!’ says my Missus. ‘He’s just a tease.’.
1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 175: To turn a verb or adjective into a descriptive noun, as: [...] tease-cat.
1969		P. Theroux Murder in Mount Holly (1999) 19: He was a useless old fool, a flop, and a tease.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 390: Oh don’t worry. I’m all talk. I’m just a big tease. It’s still Plan A. Don’t worry. I was just kidding.

4. a woman or homosexual man who provokes a man sexually but then resists intercourse; also used of men.

1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 29: You’re a wicked little tease, Olga.
1939		R. Chandler Big Sleep 11: You didn’t say anything. You’re just a big tease.
1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 22: I’m not chasing no sexy little tease all over the West End.
1988		(con. 1940s) C. Bram Hold Tight (1990) 51: Neither a giggly tease, nor an obsequious tramp.
1998		P. McCabe Breakfast on Pluto 40: I’d spend my time reading magazines — Loving, True Confessions (‘I was a bedrooom tease!’ ‘My man was hooked on a hooker!’).
2000		Indep. Rev. 6 Jan. 13: A small-town tease who’s already left three previous grooms stranded at the altar.

5. the act of teasing somebody else sexually.

1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 123: The fox is playing TAG, but mostly she’s playing tease.
2002		Sandmann ‘Burning Down the House’ Planet Sex Stories 🌐 I tit fucked each one until I could sense they were about to blow their sticky wad. Then I would abruptly break it off to continue my tease. I knew, by this point, that a gangbang was coming on. You don’t bring seven guys to boil and then walk away.

6. (US) const. with the, striptease, burlesque.

1938

H.M. Anderson Strip Tease 15: ‘The tease must have been a click the first time out’.

7. see teaser n.⁴