Definition of tantalise:

part of speech: verb

To torment with bafiled hope or desire.

Usage examples :

• Bansemer was alone and where Droom's eyes could not see him, but something told him that the grin hung outside the door for many minutes, as if waiting for a chance to pop in and tantalise him. "Jane Cable", - George Barr McCutcheon

• It was very laughable to behold the rueful countenances of the men as their beautiful, large white potatoes sank to the bottom of the clear lake, and shone brightly there, as if to tantalise them, while the rippling water caused them to quiver so much that the lake seemed to rest on a pavement of huge potatoes! "Hudson Bay", - R.M. Ballantyne

• I had thought it probable that our guide would lead us anywhere into the sand and try to escape, but I never guessed that he would tantalise us as he had done. "Spinifex and Sand Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia", - David W Carnegie

• Yet even then, whispering on his knees by the dying man, the knave was thinking, I felt sure, of me, glorying at once in his immunity and the power it gave him to tantalise me without fear. "Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France", - Stanley J. Weyman