The Only Use of
tantalize
in
The Devil and Tom Walker
- A miserable horse, whose ribs were as articulate as the bars of a gridiron, stalked about a field, where a thin carpet of moss, scarcely covering the ragged beds of pudding-stone, tantalized and balked his hunger; and sometimes he would lean his head over the fence, look piteously at the passer-by, and seem to petition deliverance from this land of famine.†
tantalized = made someone excited about getting something
Definition:
to make someone excited about getting something -- often something they cannot get
The word, tantalize, comes from a Greek mythological story about the eternal punishment of someone named Tantulus. He was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree. But when he reached up for the fruit, it withdrew just out of his reach. And when he bent down to drink, the water receded before his lips could reach it.