Touch
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- To make physical contact with; to bring the hand, finger or other part of the body into contact with.
- I touched her face softly.
- (transitive or reflexive) To sexually excite with the fingers; to finger or masturbate.
- Her parents had caught her touching herself when she was fifteen.
Etymology
From Middle English touchen, tochen, from Old French tochier ("to touch"; > Modern French toucher; compare French doublet toquer (“to offend, bother, harass”)), from Vulgar Latin *toccāre (“to knock, strike, offend”), from Old Frankish *tokkōn, *tukkōn (“to knock, strike, touch”), from Proto-Germanic *tukkōną, *tukkijaną (“to draw, jerk, knock, strike, offend”), from Proto-Indo-European *dukn-, *dewk- (“to draw, pull, lead”). Cognate with Old High German zochhōn, zuhhōn ("to grasp, take, seize, snatch"; > German zucken (“to jerk, flinch”)), Low German tokken, tukken (“to fidget, twitch, pull up, entice”), Middle Dutch tocken, tucken ("to touch, entice"; > Dutch tokkelen (“to strum, pluck”)), Old English tucian, tūcian ("to disturb, mistreat, ill-treat; offend; afflict, harass, vex; punish, torment"; > English tuck). Compare also Old Frisian tetzia, tetsia (“to seize, appropriate to oneself”), Gothic 𐍄𐌴𐌺𐌰𐌽 (tēkan, “to touch”), Old Norse taka (“to touch, grasp”), Middle Low German tacken (“to touch”), Old English tacan (“to touch, take”). Outside Germanic, cognate to Albanian cek (“to touch”). More at tuck, take.
See also
- Somatosensory system
- Tactile
- Tapp und Tastkino, 1968, performance art by Valie Export
- The relative sensitivity of men and women at the nape of the neck