Definition of "touch"

Primarily physical senses.

1. (transitive) To make physical contact with; to bring the hand, finger or other part of the body into contact with.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • While thus she spake, / She toucht his eye-lashes with libant lip / And breath'd ambrosial odours; […]

     1798 July, Walter Savage Landor, “Book VI”, in Gebir; a Poem: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxforshire: […] Slatter and Munday; and sold by R. S. Kirby, […], published 1803, page 107

2. (transitive) To come into (involuntary) contact with; to meet or intersect.  examples

3. (intransitive) To come into physical contact, or to be in physical contact.  examples

4. (intransitive) To make physical contact with a thing.  examples

5. (transitive) To physically disturb; to interfere with, molest, or attempt to harm through contact.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • 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, […], Genesis 27:28-29

6. (transitive) To make intimate physical contact with a person.  examples

7. (transitive or reflexive) To sexually excite with the fingers; to finger or masturbate.  examples

8. (transitive) To cause to be briefly in contact with something.  examples

9. (transitive) To physically affect in specific ways implied by context.  examples

10. (transitive) To consume, or otherwise use.  quotations  examples

    Quotations

    • 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

11. (intransitive) Of a ship or its passengers: to land, to make a short stop (at).  quotations  examples

    Quotations

    • 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

12. (transitive, now historical) To lay hands on (someone suffering from scrofula) as a form of cure, as formerly practised by English and French monarchs.  quotations

    Quotations

    • 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

13. (intransitive, obsolete) To fasten; to take effect; to make impression.  quotations

    Quotations

    • Strong waters pierce metals, and will touch upon gold, that will not touch upon silver.

      1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […]

14. (nautical) To bring (a sail) so close to the wind that its weather leech shakes.  examples

15. (intransitive, nautical) To be brought, as a sail, so close to the wind that its weather leech shakes.  examples

16. (nautical) To keep the ship as near (the wind) as possible.  examples

Primarily non-physical senses.

1. (transitive) To imbue or endow with a specific quality.  examples

2. (transitive, archaic) To deal with in speech or writing; to mention briefly, to allude to.  quotations

   Quotations

   • 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.

     1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps

3. (intransitive) To deal with in speech or writing; briefly to speak or write (on or upon something).  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • "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."

     1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co.

4. (transitive) To concern, to have to do with.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • Men of Israhell take hede to youreselves what ye entende to do as touchinge these men.

     1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], Acts ]

   • 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.

     1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

   • And now it seemed he was engaged in something which touched them closely, but must be hidden from their knowledge.

     1919, Saki, ‘The Penance’, The Toys of Peace, Penguin 2000 (Complete Short Stories), page 423

5. (transitive) To affect emotionally; to bring about tender or painful feelings in.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patentto offend, for if it touch not you, it comes nearnobody.

     c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]

6. (transitive, dated) To affect in a negative way, especially only slightly.  examples

7. (transitive, Scottish history) To give royal assent to by touching it with the sceptre.

8. (transitive, slang) To obtain money from, usually by borrowing (from a friend).

9. (transitive, always passive) To disturb the mental functions of; to make somewhat insane; often followed with "in the head".  examples

10. (transitive, in negative constructions) To be on the level of; to approach in excellence or quality.  quotations  examples

    Quotations

    • 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.

      1928, Dorothy L. Sayers, “The Abominable History of the Man with Copper Fingers”, in Lord Peter Views the Body

    • '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.'

      1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 6, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 118

11. (transitive) To come close to; to approach.  quotations  examples

    Quotations

    • On Sunday afternoon it was as dark as night, with barely room for two riders abreast on a gradient that touches 20%.

      2012 July 15, Richard Williams, Tour de France 2012: Carpet tacks cannot force Bradley Wiggins off track‎, Guardian Unlimited

12. (transitive, computing) To mark (a file or document) as having been modified.  examples

To try; to prove, as with a touchstone.  quotations  examples

To mark or delineate with touches; to add a slight stroke to with the pencil or brush.  quotations  examples

(obsolete) To infect; to affect slightly.  quotations

To strike; to manipulate; to play on.  quotations  examples

To perform, as a tune; to play.  quotations  examples

To influence by impulse; to impel forcibly.  quotations  examples

An act of touching, especially with the hand or finger.  examples

The faculty or sense of perception by physical contact.  examples

The style or technique with which one plays a musical instrument.  examples

(music) The particular or characteristic mode of action, or the resistance of the keys of an instrument to the fingers.  examples

A distinguishing feature or characteristic.  examples

A little bit; a small amount.  quotations  examples

The part of a sports field beyond the touchlines or goal-lines.  examples

A relationship of close communication or understanding.  examples

The ability to perform a task well; aptitude.  quotations  examples

(obsolete) Act or power of exciting emotion.  quotations

(obsolete) An emotion or affection.  quotations

(obsolete) Personal reference or application.  quotations

A single stroke on a drawing or a picture.  quotations  examples

(obsolete) A brief essay.  quotations

(obsolete) A touchstone; hence, stone of the sort used for touchstone.  quotations

(obsolete) Examination or trial by some decisive standard; test; proof; tried quality.  quotations

(shipbuilding) The broadest part of a plank worked top and but, or of one worked anchor-stock fashion (that is, tapered from the middle to both ends); also, the angles of the stern timbers at the counters.  quotations  examples

The children's game of tag.  examples

(bell-ringing) A set of changes less than the total possible on seven bells, i.e. less than 5,040.  examples

(slang) An act of borrowing or stealing something; a request for money.

(slang) The extent to which a person is interested or affected; the amount of outlay on something.  quotations

(UK, plumbing, dated) Tallow.  examples

Form; standard of performance.  quotations  examples

(Australian rules football) A disposal of the ball during a game, i.e. a kick or a handball.  quotations  examples

(chiefly Australia) touch football (a variant of rugby league that does not involve tackling)  examples