Definition
verbPrimarily physical senses.
verbPrimarily physical senses., To make physical contact with; to bring the hand, finger or other part of the body into contact with.
Sentence Examples
You can get in touch with him at his home tonight.
You have only to touch the button.
They embraced and promised to keep in touch.
Word Origin & History
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.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"While thus she spake, / She toucht his eye-lashes with libant lip / And breath'd ambrosial odours; […]"
— 1803, Walter Savage Landor, “Book VI”, in Gebir; a Poem: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Slatter and Munday; and sold by R. S. Kirby, […], →OCLC, page 107:
"Let us make a covenant with thee, that thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee."
— 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 27:28-29:
"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."
— 1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:
"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."
— 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
"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."
— 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 189: