[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality of being ticklish: see the adj.
1583. Golding, Calvin on Deut. lxxxii. 503. Besides yt ticklishnes which we haue alreadie of nature it pricketh vs forewarde to say why should not such a thing be good.
1598. Florio, Gattorigole, ticklings, ticklishness.
1607. Markham, Caval., V. (1617), 24. His vncomelinesse onely proceedes from ticklishnesse, or delight which he takes in the friction.
a. 1631. Donne, Lett. (1651), 355. You know the ticklishnesse of London-Pulpits.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., V. § 116. Such was the ticklishness of the King’s condition, that … it was not thought Counsellable at that time … to commit them to Prison.
1739. Cheyne, Regimen, 200 (L.). We know by the ticklishness of the soles [of the feet] what a multitude of fine nervous fibres terminate in them.
1790. Paley, Horæ Paul., vi. (1849), 389. The difficulty and ticklishness of the times in which we live.
1905. Longm. Mag., Feb., 360. The mare … was in high spirits, which demonstrated themselves by an affectation of extreme ticklishness, when a fly alighted on her shining flank.
