tactual

English

Alternative forms

• tactuall (obsolete, rare)

Adjective

tactual (comparative more tactual, superlative most tactual)

1. Of, or relating to the sense of touch.
   • 1642, Henry More, Psychodia Platonica, Cambridge, Book 3, p. 61,^[1]

     […] how doth Psyche heare or see

     That hath nor eyes nor eares? She sees more clear

     Then we that see but secundarily.

     We see at distance by a circular

     Diffusion of that spright of this great sphere

     Of th’Universe: Her sight is tactuall.

     The sunne and all the starres that do appear

     She feels them in herself […]

   • 1906, Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic’s Word Book, New York: Doubleday, Page, p. 211,^[2]

     […] the later sovereigns of England have not been tactual healers, and the disease once honored with the name “king’s evil” now bears the humbler one of “scrofula” […]

   • 1908, Helen Keller, The World I Live In, New York: The Century Co., Chapter 1, p. 8,^[3]

     My world is built of touch-sensations, devoid of physical color and sound […] . Every object is associated in my mind with tactual qualities which, combined in countless ways, give me a sense of power, of beauty, or of incongruity: for with my hands I can feel the comic as well as the beautiful in the outward appearance of things.

   • 1932, Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, London: Chatto & Windus, Chapter 3,^[4]

     ‘Going to the Feelies this evening, Henry?’ enquired the Assistant Predestinator. ‘I hear the new one at the Alhambra is first-rate. There’s a love scene on a bearskin rug; they say it’s marvellous. Every hair of the bear reproduced. The most amazing tactual effects.’

Synonyms

• tactile

Derived terms

• tactuality
• tactually