Touch

subs. (old).—1.  Worth; value; cost: usually in combination, as a GUINEA-TOUCH = something costing a guinea; a PENNY-TOUCH = a penn’orth. Also (Eton) = a present of money.

  1720.  SIR ERASMUS PHILIPPS, Diary, 22 Sept. At night went to the ball at the Angel, a guinea-TOUCH.

  1712.  SWIFT, A Preface to the B. of S—’s Introduction. I do now send you my Preface … which I desire you to print in such a Form, as in the Bookseller’s Phrase, will make a Sixpenny TOUCH.

  1864.  HOTTEN, The Slang Dictionary, s.v. TOUCH … Sometimes said of a woman to imply her worthlessness, as, ‘Only a HALF-CROWN TOUCH.’

  2.  (old colloquial).—A trick; a dodge; a contrivance: cf. verb. 1. TO DO A TOUCH = to make shift; to manage somehow.

  1530.  PALSGRAVE, Langue Francoyse. TOUCHE, a crafty dede, tour.

  1535.  JOY, Apology to Tyndale [ARBER], 25. [The word TOUCHE is used for trick.]

  3.  (colloquial).—Generic for the minimum of effort or effect: e.g., a TOUCH (= suspicion) of frost; a TOUCH OF THE TAR-BRUSH = slightly coloured (of mixed white and black blood); a TOUCH (= a spice) of humour; a slight TOUCH = a gentle reminder: hence TO TOUCH UPON = to dwell lightly on a matter; a TOUCH (= a pricking) of conscience; a TOUCH (= a trace) of pity; a TOUCH (= a foretaste) of spring; a TOUCH (= a twinge) of pain; TO TOUCH OFF = to outline, draft, or produce hastily or by a few strokes of pen, pencil, or brush; TO TOUCH UP = (1) to gently jog the memory, (2) to urge, egg on, or spur forward, (3) to improve, mend, or add to (cf. TO TOUCH OFF and TOUCHY): also see verb. 4: hence TOUCH-UP, subs. = (1) a reminder, (2) a spur to action, (3) a finishing or improving stroke.

  1597.  SHAKESPEARE, Richard III., i. 2. 71. No beast so fierce but knows some TOUCH of pity.

  1648.  GAUDEN, Eikon Basilike. I never bare any TOUCH of conscience with greater regret.

  1716.  ADDISON, The Free-holder, No. 44, 21 May. What he saw was only her natural Countenance, TOUCHED UP with the usual Improvements of an aged Coquette.

  d. 1774.  GOLDSMITH, Clubs. I was upon this whispered … that I should now see something TOUCHED OFF to a nicety.

  1821.  GALT, The Ayrshire Legatees, viii. He’s such a funny man, and TOUCHES OFF the Londoners to the nines.

  1851.  HAWTHORNE, The House of the Seven Gables, x. Give me a rose, that I may press its thorns, and prove myself awake, by the sharp TOUCH of pain!

  d. 1878.  BRYANT, The Song Sparrow.

  1886.  The Field, 22 Jan. A TOUCH of frost.

  1890.  Notes and Queries, 7 S., x. 118. Faint in some parts, very dark in others. If the plate was worn it has been TOUCHED afterwards.

  See TOUCH-AND-GO.

  Verb. (old colloquial).—1.  Generic for getting: spec. (GROSE) to get money in hand. Also in modern usage = to obtain speciously or secretly, by methods that will not bear too close a scrutiny; and hence (thieves’) = to steal: in Australia to act unfairly: cf. subs.

  1726.  VANBRUGH and CIBBER, The Provoked Husband [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, ii. 159. A man TOUCHES money (obtains it), a new sense of the verb].

  1749.  SMOLLETT, Gil Blas (1812), III. ii. All that I have been able to TOUCH being no more than three thousand ducats.

  1771.  SMOLLETT, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1900), ii. 134. England, I conceive, may TOUCH about one million sterling a year.

  1796.  J. G. HOLMAN, Abroad and at Home, i. 3. I could not … go abroad without her. So I TOUCH’D father’s cash.

  1862.  The Cornhill Magazine, vi. Nov., 648. We have just TOUCHED for a rattling stake of sugar at Brum.

  1887.  J. W. HORSLEY, Jottings from Jail, i. One day I took the rattler from Broad Street to Acton. I did not TOUCH them, but worked my way to Shepherd’s Bush.

  1879.  J. W. HORSLEY, ‘Autobiography of a Thief,’ in Macmillan’s Magazine, XL. 502. I … TOUCHED for a red toy (gold watch) and red tackle (gold chain).

  1888.  G. R. SIMS, A Plank Bed Ballad [Referee, 12 Feb., 3].

  1888.  St. Louis Globe Democrat. A dip TOUCHED the Canadian sheriff for his watch and massive chain while he was reading the Riot Act.

  c. 1889.  Bird o’ Freedom [quoted in A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant]. He ran against a wealthy friend whom he thought to TOUCH. ‘No, my boy,’ said the friend, ‘I never give or lend money.’

  1896.  LILLARD, Poker Stories, 102. I knew a thing or two about poker, and it would have required George Appo himself to have TOUCHED me for my wad.

  1897.  MARSHALL, Pomes, 17. He lived upon credit, and what he could TOUCH.

  2.  (colloquial).—To be equal to, capable of, or bear comparison with. TO HAVE A TOUCH = to make an attempt.

  1713.  STEELE, The Guardian, No. 82, June 15. Mr. William Peer distinguished himself particularly in two characters, which no man ever could TOUCH but himself.

  1834.  SEBA SMITH (‘Major Downing’), Jack Downing’s Letters, i. 30. The children of Israel … going out of Egypt with their flocks and their little ones, wasn’t no TOUCH to it [i.e., the first day of May in New York].

  1838.  DICKENS, Oliver Twist, xliii. Wasn’t he always top-sawyer among you all? Is there one of you that could TOUCH him, or come near him?

  1851–61.  H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, I. 162. I thought I’d have a TOUCH at the same thing. But you see I never could rise money enough to make a do of it.

  4.  (venery).—To copulate: see RIDE: as subs. = the act of kind; whence TOUCH-HOLE = the female pudendum: see MONOSYLLABLE; TOUCH-TRAP = the penis: see PRICK; TOUCH-CRIB = a brothel. Also (5) (or TO TOUCH UP) to grope a woman; (6) to roke a man; TOUCHABLE = (1) RIPE (q.v.), and (2) in trim for the act; also TO TOUCH UP (GROSE) = to masturbate. ‘Not to be TOUCHED with a pair of tongs’ (of a foundered whore): see BARGE-POLE.

  1603.  SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure, v. 1. Free from TOUCH or soil with her.

  1653.  URQUHART, Rabelais, I. xii. His governesses burst out laughing…. One would call it her pillicock … her TOUCH-TRAP, her flap-dowdle.

  1661.  Merry Drollery [EBSWORTH], 229. For WITHOUT A PAIR OF TONGUES there’s no man will TOUCH HER.

  1668.  SIR R. L’ESTRANGE, The Visions of Quevedo (1678), 22. Your Beauties can never want Gallants to lay their Appetites … Whereas no body will TOUCH the Ill-favour’d WITHOUT A PAIR OF TONGS.

  1670.  COTTON, Scarronides, or, Virgil Travestie (1770), 80.

  1719.  D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy, iv. 207.

  1725.  N. BAILEY, trans. The Colloquies of Erasmus, ‘Lying-in Woman.’ Would you have me persuade your Husband never to TOUCH you more?

  1751.  SMOLLETT, Peregrine Pickle, lxxxvii. He wrote a letter to Hatchway, desiring him to receive this hedge inamorata, and desired her to be cleaned and clothed in a decent manner … so that she should be TOUCHABLE on his arrival.

  1772.  BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 361.

  7.  (old).—To arrest (GROSE).

  PHRASES AND COLLOQUIALISMS.  IN TOUCH WITH = (1) in sympathy, and (2) near at hand; OUT OF TOUCH WITH = (1) antagonistic, and (2) out-of-the-way, un-get-at-able; TO TOUCH ONE = to affect, concern, or influence; TO TOUCH A SORE SPOT (UP, HOME, or ON THE RAWS, etc.), to irritate by allusion or joke, to rub up the wrong way, to clinch an argument, advice, or comment; TRUE AS TOUCH = absolutely true; TO TOUCH BOTTOM (or BEDROCK) = (1) to reach the lowest point, and (2) to get at the truth of matters; TO TOUCH HER UP (nautical) = to shake a vessel by luffing; ‘TOUCH POT, TOUCH PENNY’ = ‘No credit given’; ‘TOUCH BONE AND WHISTLE’ (GROSE) = ‘Anyone having broken wind backwards, according to vulgar law, may be pinched by any of the company till he has touched bone (i.e., his teeth) and whistled.’

  c. 1400.  Generydes (E.E.T.S.), 560.

  1549.  LATIMER, Sermons before Edward VI., iii. They keep no TOUCH; they will talk of many gay things; they will pretend this and that, but they keep no promise. Ibid. As the text doth rise, I will TOUCH AND GO a little in every place.

  1592.  SHAKESPEARE, 1 Henry VI., iv. 1. 118. The quarrel TOUCHETH none but us alone.

  1633.  SHIRLEY, The Bird in a Cage, iv. 1.

  1634.  FORD, Perkin Warbeck, ii. 1. Beshrew me, but his words have TOUCH’D me home.

  1720.  SWIFT, Elegy on Mr. Demar. He TOUCHED THE PENCE when others TOUCHED THE POT.

  1772.  R. GRAVES, The Spiritual Quixote, iii. ii. ‘We know the custom of such houses,’ continues he; ‘’tis TOUCH POT, TOUCH PENNY—we only want money’s-worth for our money.’

  1838.  WILLIAM WATTS (‘Lucian Redivivus’), Paradise Lost, 97.

  1857.  B. TAYLOR, Northern Travel, 43. A handsome, lively boy, whose pride was a little TOUCHED by my remonstrances.

  18[?].  New Princeton Review, II. 47. We want, with our brethren of the working class, that which we have largely lost … that expressive thing which we call ‘TOUCH.’

  1882.  Pall Mall Gazette, 14 Sept. There were frequent halts to enable the regiments to maintain TOUCH.

  1889.  The Academy, 1 June, 371. The European in Morocco feels that when he is in company with a Barbary Jew he is in TOUCH with Europe.

  See TOUCHED.