DCHP-1 Online
tickle [perhaps < Brit. (western) dial. stickle rapids, riffle] Atlantic Provinces (esp.Nfid) 
1a n. a narrow strait between an island and the mainland or, sometimes, between two islands.
See also: tittle
- 1770 (1792) There is a narrow tickle of twenty yards, between this island and the continent; across which a net is fixed, to stop the seals from passing through.
- 1896 Tickle [is used] at Miramichi, for a narrow passage between island and shore.
- 1907 "It was moonlight, and a' travelled nine miles over pretty rotten stuff to the north island, and then nine miles more across the tickle to the next."
- 1962 [The ferries] suspend operations when winter winds pack ice into the three-mile "tickle" between the island and the inner landing at Portugal Cove.
- 1966 . . . we complained bitterly that "our bonnies lay over the ocean," when we knew very well that they lived across the "tickle."
1b n. a narrow entrance into a harbor; sometimes, the narrows and the harbor together.
- 1842 Tickle . . . often occurs in the Newfoundland charts, and means a small safe harbour--whence derived, I cannot say.
- 1891 The best spots to dredge are the patches of shelly bottoms situated at the inner end of a "tickle" leading out from a deep harbor, where the tides and currents have no power.
- 1962 The run through the narrow channel, or "tickle," out of Milltown Bay was fast and uneventful
2 n. North an opening in an icefield.
See also: lead ((n.))
- 1908 Carried with the current southward from Greenland, sometimes slipping into the long "tickles" of water open between the floes, again watching their chance to follow the calm sea to the rear of some giant iceberg . . . The Discovery came to Ungava Bay, Labrador, in July.
- 1770 (1792) There is a narrow tickle of twenty yards, between this island and the continent; across which a net is fixed, to stop the seals from passing through.