adv. [f. prec. + -LY2.] In a ticklish position or fashion; insecurely, critically, delicately.
1640. E. Dacres, trans. Machiavelli’s Prince, 147. The forraine matters stand but ticklishly.
1762. Kames, Elem. Crit., xxiv. (1774), II. 478. A bare uniform cylinder … without a base, appears too ticklishly placed to stand firm.
1794. Washington, Lett. to T. Lear, 14 Dec. It is to be lamented however, that in plain matters—a little ticklishly circumstanced—such hazards … should be unnecessarily encountered.
1846. D. Jerrold, Chron. Clovernook, Wks. 1864, IV. 424. They inhabit paste-board huts, so loosely, so ticklishly put together, that every wind that blows scares the tenants with the horrid apprehension that they will be buried beneath a heap of ruins.
