tantalize

verb

1. (transitive)To tease (someone) by offering or showing them something desirable but leaving them unsatisfied.

   “They could not bear to be tantalized nor tortured by the splendid delusion.”

   “All pleasures palled upon me; all sights tantalized and tempted me to outspoken treason, because I could not but compare what I saw in Two Dimensions with what it really was if seen in Three, and could hardly refrain from making my comparisons aloud.”

   “He had been possessed of much fear of his friend, for he saw how easily questionings could make holes in his feelings. Lately, he had assured himself that the altered comrade would not tantalize him with a persistent curiosity, but he felt certain that during the first period of leisure his friend would ask him to relate his adventures of the previous day.”

   “Then he signed the warrior to continue to shoot arrows into the great beast while he attempted to close in upon him with the knife; so as one tantalized upon one side, the other sneaked cautiously in upon the other.”

   ““It was—simply amazing,” she repeated abstractedly. “But I swore I wouldn’t tell it and here I am tantalizing you.””

2. (intransitive, obsolete)To be teased by something desirable that is kept out of reach.

   “The poore people in Corinth did ſee, and ſmell, vvhat the rich men taſted, Tantalizing all the vvhile, and having their penury doubled by the Antiperiſtaſis of others plenty[…]”