touch
/tʌt͡ʃ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.91 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "I touched his face softly."
- "While thus she spake, / She toucht his eye-lashes with libant lip / And breath'd ambrosial odours; […]"
- "Sitting on the bench, the hem of her skirt touched the ground."
- "They stood next to each other, their shoulders touching."
- "Please can I have a look, if I promise not to touch?"
- "If you touch her, I'll kill you."
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *dewk-, touchen, tochier, *tuccō, *tukkōn, *tukkōną
Usage
Inflected Forms
touches (present, singular)
touching (participle, present)
touched (participle, past)
touched (past)
toucht (obsolete, participle)
toucht (obsolete, past)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
touched (first person, past)
toucht (archaic, first person)
touchest (archaic, present)
touched (past, second person)
Derived Forms
Phrases
because you touch yourself at night
don't touch that dial
everything one touches turns to gold
everything one touches turns to shit
heart-touching
not touch something with a barge pole
not touch something with a ten-foot pole
not touch with a barge pole