Word: touch Part of Speech: verb Etymology: From Middle English touchen, tochen, from Old French tochier (“to touch”) (whence Modern French toucher; compare French doublet toquer (“to offend, bother, harass”)), from Vulgar Latin *tuccō (“to knock, strike, offend”), from Frankish *tukkōn (“to knock, strike, touch”), from Proto-Germanic *tukkōną (“to tug, grab, grasp”), from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to draw, pull, lead”). Largely displaced native Middle English rinen, from Old English hrīnan (whence Modern English rine). Doublet of tuck. Cognates Cognate with Old High German zochhōn, zuhhōn (“to grasp, take, seize, snatch”) (whence German zucken (“to jerk, flinch”)), German Low German tucken, tocken (“to fidget, twitch, pull up, entice, throb, knock, repeatedly tap”), Middle Dutch tocken, tucken (“to touch, entice”) (whence Dutch tokkelen (“to strum, pluck”)), Old English tucian, tūcian (“to disturb, mistreat”) (whence Modern English tuck). Compare also Old High German tokkōn, tockōn (“to abut, collide”). More at tuck. Via Proto-Indo-European *dewk- cognate with English tie, tow, tug, team, Latin dūcō, dux. Pronunciation: /tʌt͡ʃ/, /tɛt͡ʃ/, /tɑt͡ʃ/ 1. Primarily physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: I touched his face softly. Example: While thus she spake, / She toucht his eye-lashes with libant lip / And breath'd ambrosial odours; […] 2. Primarily physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: Sitting on the bench, the hem of her skirt touched the ground. 3. Primarily physical senses. Labels: intransitive Example: They stood next to each other, their shoulders touching. 4. Primarily physical senses. Labels: intransitive Example: Please can I have a look, if I promise not to touch? 5. Primarily physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: If you touch her, I'll kill you. Example: Let us make a covenant with thee, that thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee. 6. Primarily physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: The man was arrested for touching a girl without her consent. 7. Primarily physical senses. Labels: intransitive, rare, reflexive, transitive Example: Her parents had caught her touching herself when she was fifteen. 8. Primarily physical senses. Example: Tell me the truth, did you touch her? 9. Primarily physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: He quickly touched his knee to the worn marble. Example: The demonstrator nearly touched the rod on the ball. 10. Primarily physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: Frankly, this wood's so strong that sandpaper won't touch it. 11. Primarily physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: Are you all right? You've hardly touched your lunch. Example: But Richmond[…]appeared to lose himself in his own reflections. Some pickled crab, which he had not touched, had been removed with a damson pie; and his sister saw[…]that he had eaten no more than a spoonful of that either. 12. Primarily physical senses. Labels: intransitive Example: Now a certain grand merchant ship once touched at Rokovoko, and its commander — from all accounts, a very stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain — this commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's sister, a pretty young princess just turned of ten. 13. Primarily physical senses. Labels: historical, transitive Example: But in fact the English kings of the seventeenth century usually began to touch form the day of their accession, without waiting for any such consecration. 14. Primarily physical senses. Labels: intransitive, obsolete Example: Strong waters pierce metals, and will touch upon gold, that will not touch upon silver. 15. Primarily physical senses. 16. Primarily physical senses. Labels: intransitive 17. Primarily physical senses. Example: to touch the wind 18. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: My grandfather, as many people know, was touched with greatness. Example: This year, J. Allen Collier, the artistic director and producer, invited choreographers to create dance pieces exploring the multi-faceted responses to the AIDS crisis. This thematic unity touched the show with additional solemnity and grace. 19. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: archaic, transitive Example: Next to sorrow still I may annex such accidents as procure fear; for besides those terrors which I have before touched, […] there is a superstitious fear […] which much trouble many of us. 20. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: intransitive Example: 'Well, but since we have touched upon this business, and for the last time I hope,' continued the doctor, 'there is one point I should like you to understand.[…]' 21. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: Men of Israhell take hede to youreselves what ye entende to do as touchinge these men. Example: The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed. They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator. 22. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: transitive, usually, with-negation Example: I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole. Example: His latest play is so shocking that his publisher wouldn't touch it and his friends almost dumped him. 23. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to offend, for if it touch not you, it comes near nobody. Example: Stefan was touched by the song's message of hope. 24. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: dated, transitive Example: He had been drinking over lunch, and was clearly touched. 25. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: Scottish, transitive Example: The bill was finally touched after many hours of deliberation. 26. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: slang, transitive Example: I was running short, so I touched old Bertie for a fiver. 27. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: You must be touched if you think I'm taking your advice. 28. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: There was his mistress, Maria Morano. I don't think I've ever seen anything to touch her, and when you work for the screen [as I do] you're apt to have a pretty exacting standard of female beauty. Example: 'Lind Arden was a great genius, one of the greatest tragic actresses in the world. As Lady Macbeth, as Magda, there was no one to touch her.' 29. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: transitive Example: On Sunday afternoon it was as dark as night, with barely room for two riders abreast on a gradient that touches 20%. 30. Primarily non-physical senses. Labels: transitive 31. To try; to prove, as with a touchstone. Example: I mean to touch your love indeed. 32. To mark or delineate with touches; to add a slight stroke to with the pencil or brush. Example: The lines, though touched but faintly, are drawn right. 33. To infect; to affect slightly. Labels: obsolete Example: Hee was touched with great Remorse 34. To strike; to manipulate; to play on. Example: to touch an instrument of music Example: [They] touched their golden harps. 35. To perform, as a tune; to play. Example: A person in the royal retinue touched a light and lively air on the flageolet. 36. To influence by impulse; to impel forcibly. Example: No decree of mine,[…][to] touch with lightest moment of impulse his free will.