tantalize: [16] The verb tantalize was inspired by the sad story of Tantalus, a mythical king of Phrygia in the ancient world. He had displeased the gods in some way (versions differ as to how, the commonest being that he had stolen their food), and as a punishment he was condemned to stand for ever in water up to his chin, while overhead hung boughs laden with fruit: whenever he stooped to drink, the water disappeared, and when he tried to reach the fruit, the wind blew it away. The term tantalus, coined in the 19th century for a lockable decanter stand whose contents can be seen but not got at, preserves the same idea.
tantalize (v.)
1590s, with -ize + Latin Tantalus, from Greek Tantalos, king of Phrygia, son of Zeus, father of Pelops and Niobe, punished in the afterlife (for an offense variously given) by being made to stand in a river up to his chin, under branches laden with fruit, all of which withdrew from his reach whenever he tried to eat or drink. His story was known to Chaucer (c. 1369). Related: Tantalized; tantalizing; tantalizingly; tantalization.
