tactus

English

Etymology

From Latin tactus. Doublet of tact.

Noun

tactus (uncountable)

1. The sense of touch.
2. (music) beat, pulse

Latin

Etymology 1

Perfect passive participle of tangō (“touch”).

Participle

tāctus (feminine tācta, neuter tāctum); first/second-declension participle

1. touched, having been touched, grasped, having been grasped
2. reached, having been reached, arrived at, having been arrived at
3. attained to, having been attained to
4. moved, having been moved, affected, having been affected

Declension

First/second-declension adjective.

	singular				plural
	masculine	feminine	neuter		masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative	tāctus	tācta	tāctum		tāctī	tāctae	tācta
genitive	tāctī	tāctae	tāctī		tāctōrum	tāctārum	tāctōrum
dative	tāctō	tāctae	tāctō		tāctīs
accusative	tāctum	tāctam	tāctum		tāctōs	tāctās	tācta
ablative	tāctō	tāctā	tāctō		tāctīs
vocative	tācte	tācta	tāctum		tāctī	tāctae	tācta

Etymology 2

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g-

Proto-Italic *tangō

Latin tangō

Proto-Indo-European *-tus

Proto-Italic *-tus

Latin -tus

Latin tāctus

From tangō + -tus (forming action nouns).

Noun

tāctus m (genitive tāctūs); fourth declension

1. contact, the act of touching

   Synonyms: contāgiō, contāctus

2. influence, effect

   Synonyms: effectus, contāgiō

3. the sense of touch

   Coordinate terms: audītus, aspectus / vīsus, gustātus, odōrātus / olfactus

Declension

Fourth-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	tāctus	tāctūs
genitive	tāctūs	tāctuum
dative	tāctuī	tāctibus
accusative	tāctum	tāctūs
ablative	tāctū	tāctibus
vocative	tāctus	tāctūs

Descendants

• Catalan: tacte
• → English: tact
• French: tact
• Galician: tacto
• → German: Takt
• Italian: tatto
• Occitan: tacte
• Portuguese: tato
• Spanish: tacto
• → Swedish: takt

References

• “tactus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “tactus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• tactus in Enrico Olivetti, editor (2003-2026), Dizionario Latino, Olivetti Media Communication
• “tactus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • inspired: divino quodam spiritu inflatus or tactus