Englishtickle someone's fancy
Meaning: To please or amuse someone in a light-hearted way.
Example: “The little sailboat lamp in the window tickled my fancy.”
Origin: "Fancy" here is the same worn-down form of "fantasy" behind "catch someone's fancy" — a narrowed sense meaning imaginative interest, whim, or particular taste. "Tickle," meanwhile, has carried a figurative sense of delighting or pleasing someone since at least Shakespeare's time; Coriolanus (1608) already has a character "tickled with good success," using the word for a pleasurable stimulation with nothing to do with the literal physical sensation of ticklishness. Combined, "tickle someone's fancy" treats a person's particular interests and tastes as something that can be lightly, pleasurably stimulated — an idea, object, or possibility that catches hold of exactly what that person finds appealing, the same light, almost involuntary reaction a literal tickle produces.
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