a. Sc. and U.S. [f. KITTLE v.1 + -Y; cf. Norw. kitlug, Sw. kitlig, LG. kitlich, G. kitzlich. For the sense ‘risky’ in the compound kittly-benders, cf. KITTLE a.] Easily tickled; susceptible or sensitive to tickling; ticklish; tickly.

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1822.  Galt, Steam-boat, viii. 155. I was no so kittly as she thought, and could thole her progs and jokes. Ibid. (1830), Lawrie T., V. ii. (1849), 199. It made the very soles of my feet kittly to hear it.

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  b.  Kittly-benders (also corruptly kettle-debenders), thin ice that bends under one’s weight; the sport of running over this. (U.S. colloq.)

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1854.  Thoreau, Walden, 353. Let us not play at kittly-benders.

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1872.  E. E. Hale, How to Do it, iii. 46. You will, with unfaltering step, move quickly over the kettle-debenders of this broken essay.

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