tickled pink
idiom

- very pleased; delighted

The American Heritage Dictionary

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PHRASE ORIGIN

"Tickled Pink" is from the late 19th to early 20th century.” Tickled" = delighted, amused, pleased — from the physical sensation of tickling causing involuntary laughter and pleasure. The figurative use of "tickled" meaning "pleased" dates back to at least the 1740s.

"Pink" = the colour associated with healthy, glowing skin — it references the flushed, rosy complexion that appears when someone is extremely happy, excited, or pleased, and the blushing effect from joy or laughter.

The phrase appeared in American sources from the 1900s-1910s and became widespread in American English by the 1920s. It remains common in informal English, expressing extreme pleasure, delight, or satisfaction about something. While somewhat old-fashioned, it's still widely understood and used, particularly in British and American English.

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WHY WE CAN’T TICKLE OURSELVES


We can’t tickle ourselves — and that simple fact reveals something fascinating about how our brain separates what we do from what the world does to us.

Tickling relies on surprise. When someone else tickles us, our brain can’t fully predict the sensation, triggering laughter or squirming. When we try it ourselves, our brain already knows what’s coming — and shuts the response down.

This happens because the cerebellum (a wrinkled little structure tucked under the back of the brain) predicts the sensory outcome of every movement before it occurs: pressure, timing, and location. When prediction and reality match, there’s no uncertainty — and without uncertainty, there’s no tickle. The sensation is cancelled before it reaches awareness.

Our predictive system does much more than prevent self-tickling. It helps us distinguish between what we cause and what comes from the outside world — this is essential for orientation, agency, and mental stability. When this system breaks down, people may misattribute their own actions to external forces, a disruption seen in conditions such as schizophrenia and other dissociative disorders.

So when someone else makes us laugh or squirm with a tickle or a prod, that's surprise is doing its job. Not being able to tickle yourself isn’t a flaw — it’s proof of a finely tuned brain that keeps self and world clearly apart. Otherwise we’d never know where we end and everything else begins.

Helga & Paul Smith​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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SYNONYMS

aflame, aglow, as happy as a clam (happy as a sandboy, happy as Larry, pleased as Punch), beside oneself, boffo, can’t complain, carried away, champion, chucklesome, chuffed, cock-a-hoop, delighted, deliriously happy, ecstatic, euphoric, exhilarated, fine and dandy, floating on air, full of the joys of spring, fun-filled, golden, in heaven, in high spirits (paradise, raptures, rhapsodies, seventh heaven), transports of delight (joy, pleasure), joyful, jubilant, juiced up, jumping, jumping for joy, like a child with a new toy (a dog with two tails, the cat that’s got the cream), magical, on a high (cloud nine, cloud seven, the top of the world), overjoyed, over the moon, pleased as Punch, popping, rib-tickling, rip-roaring, ripping, side-splitting, spanking, thrilled to bits (to pieces), TICKLED PINK, tickled to death, uproarious, walking on air, well-pleased, zippy

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation today, say something like:

“We’d be TICKLED PINK if you visited us next time you are in town.”

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