tickle-footed

English

Etymology

From the obsolete adjective tickle (“unsteady”)

Adjective

tickle-footed

1. (obsolete or poetic) having unsure or slippery footing, or inconstant.
   • c. 1613–1616, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Scornful Lady, a Comedy”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     You were ever tickle-footed, and would not truss round.

   • 1824, Gilmour, Or The Last Lockinge:

     tickle-footed wanton

   • 1987, Margaret Paige, Ride My River with Me:

     But what goes on
     Between a flower
     And tickle-footed
     Honey bee Is still a mystery

   • a. 1942, Ogden Nash, Summer Serenade:

     When the thunder stalks the sky,
     When tickle-footed walks the fly,
     When shirt is wet and throat is dry,
     Look, my darling, thats July.

References

• “tickle-footed”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.