subs. (colloquial).—1. A puzzler; anything difficult or perplexing: also (HALLIWELL) a shrewd cunning person.
2. (American).—A small pocket-ledger; also a banker’s register: of bills (of exchange) payable and receivable, and daily cash balances.
1889. R. WHEATLEY, The New York Banks, in Harper’s Magazine, lxxx. 464. The TICKLERS, showing in detail debts receivable in the future, those past due, and also the overdrafts, require explanation by the president.
3. (common).—A dram. Also (American) = a half pint flask of spirits.
1851. How Mike Hooter Came Very Near ‘Wolloping’ Arch Coony, in Polly Peablossom’s Wedding and Other Tales. Then he tuck out er TICKLER of whisky, and arter he’d tuck three er four swallows out’n it, sez he, ‘Uncle Mick, obleege me by taking er horn!’
1889. J. L. ALLEN, County Court Day in Kentucky, in Harper’s Magazine, lxxix. Aug., 388. Whiskey was sold and drunk without screens or scruples. It was not usually bought by the drink, but by the TICKLER.
1886. E. M. NICHOLL, Impressions of a Modern Arcadian, in The Fortnightly Review, N.S., xxxix. 77. It is too cold to work, but it is not too cold to sit on a fence chewing, with a ‘TICKLER’ of whisky handy.
4. (common).—A small poker: used to save a better one: cf. CURATE.
5. (American).—A bowie knife.
1843. DICKENS, Martin Chuzzlewit, xxxiii. He also carried, amongst other trinkets, a sword-stick, which he called his ‘TICKLER’; and a great knife, which (for he was a man of a pleasant turn of humour) he called ‘Ripper,’ in allusion to its usefulness as a means of ventilating the stomach of any adversary in a close contest.
6. See TICKLE, verb.
