Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a woman (or man, if gay) who permits or encourages a good deal of sexual intimacy but not intercourse.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
c.1935		‘Moon Mullins in “Nerts”’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 31: So you make advances and then try to back out. Just a backwoods cocktease, eh?
1942		H. Miller Roofs of Paris (1983) 35: She’s a cock teaser, all promises and no follow-through.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 5: ‘Jerry tells me they’re on the nose.’ [...] ‘Yeah. Just a coupler ———.’ He used a word that means that they titillated the passions and then refused to satisfy them.
1957		W. Burroughs letter 28 Aug. in Harris (1993) 365: A Danish cockteaser gave me essential character.
1964		I. Faust Steagle 230: Flo you cock tease.
1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 93: Tralala didnt fuckaround. Nobody likes a cockteaser.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 52: One who cock-teases is called a cock-teaser, a CT [etc.].
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 240: I felt the power of being a cocktease.
1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 149: That fucking cockteaser, he would get her for this.
1985		‘Thommo’ Dict. Aus. Swearing & Sex Sayings 27: COCK TEASER — A female who flirts constantly at parties, appears to be sexually eager and willing [...] But if the hard word is put on her, she will literally shit herself, laugh nervously and walk away. A typical candidate for rape.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 168: Keith’s rapes were to be viewed quite distinctly from those numerous occasions when, in his youth, he had been obliged to slap into line various cockteasers.
1997		Sydney Morn. Herald 18 Jan. 12S/7: ‘I thought the worst thing anyone could call you was a cock-teaser’.
2001		K. Waterhouse Soho 145: He hazily knew what Christine was on about. He’d known cock-teasers like this one.
2003		K. Cage Gayle 63/1: cock tease n. a male homosexual who arouses a man sexually, and then refuses gratification.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 33: [S]inful secutress and cold cocktease.

2. in fig. use, a person who strings someone else along.

2001

(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 196: Don’t be a cock tease. You’ve got this tendency to string things out.