▪ I. toucher
(ˈtʌtʃə(r))
[f. touch v. + -er1.]
One who or that which touches, in senses of the verb.
1. gen. a. lit. or in physical sense.
| 1435 Misyn Fire of Love i. xxv. 54 Qwhils þe hart of þe toucher in dyuers desires is takyn. 1495 Trevisa's Barth. De P.R. vii. lxvi. (W. de W.) S iij, Yf he [torpedo] be touchyd with a spere, the towcher shall fele the vyolence of the venym. 1548 Udall, etc. Erasm. Par. Matt. ix. 59 [Jesus] loked about hym as seking for the priuy toucher. 1680 C. Nesse Church Hist. 340 Touch a great man upon the sore..he fumes and casts the toucher into prison. 1763 Life Swift in Wks. XI. 265 A thistle is the Scotish arms Which to the Toucher threatens harms. 1904 Times, Lit. Suppl. 1 Apr. 97/2 That high sort..means death to the profane toucher. |
b. fig.
| 1601 Deacon & Walker Spirits & Divels 121 This argument..is a toucher. 1709 Mrs. Manley Secret Mem. (1720) III. 323 A Heart truly touch'd, values nothing in comparison with the Toucher. 1846 Haydon in Gullick & Timbs Paint. (1859) 235 The touchers..are the great men who had discovered the optical principles of imitating nature to convey thought. |
c. With adv., as toucher-up.
| 1908 Westm. Gaz. 28 Jan. 4/1 Taken..advantage of by the wily dealer and his ally, the ‘toucher-up’. |
d. One who † robs or seeks to obtain gifts or loans of money for himself. slang.
| 1849 G. G. Foster New York in Slices 25 The other places in the cotillion are occupied by a notorious kracksman [sic] with his ‘pal’—a celebrated ‘toucher’. 1904 Chicago Tribune 30 Oct. (Worker's Mag.) 4/2 The salaried clerk who keeps his wife..at a fashionable hotel is, usually, a toucher of the kind that makes a good front. 1919 Wodehouse My Man Jeeves 91 Many's the time in London, I've hurried along Piccadilly and felt the hot breath of the toucher on the back of my neck. 1961 ‘F. O'Brien’ Hard Life xii. 101 The streets aren't crawling with touchers like Dublin. |
2. Bowls. A bowl which touches the jack.
| 1600 Nashe Summer's Last Will 1178 Ho, wel shot, a tutcher, a tutcher! 1659 Fuller App. Inj. Innoc. (1840) 552, I expected when the Animadvertor had knocked away my bowl, he would have laid a toucher in the room thereof. 1868 ‘S. Daryl’ Quoits & Bowls 51 A bowl which touches the Jack at any time during its course..is called a ‘toucher’. |
3. An instrument for touching: see quot.
| 1885 C. G. W. Lock Workshop Receipts Ser. iv. 327/2 By means of a little strip of brass—called a ‘toucher’—the crossings are found [in examining a watch]. |
4. colloq. or slang. a. A case of close contact, an exact fit. b. A very near approach, a ‘near go’; in phr. as near as a toucher, very nearly, all but; within a toucher, within an inch of doing something (only in Wodehouse).
| 1827 W. Clarke Every Night Bk. 73 The cock which takes your fancy..is..to all appearance, right-thorough bred, or ‘as near it as a toucher’. 1828 Craven Gloss. s.v., An exact fit. ‘It hits to a toucher’, i.e. so exactly that the joints touch each other. 1840 J. T. J. Hewlett P. Priggins ix, ‘So Dick and Tripes were nearly being rusticated this morning’... ‘As near as a toucher’. 1860 Sala Baddington Peerage I. xvii. 298 It was a near toucher, though! 1894 Sir J. D. Astley 50 Years Life II. 199, I was as near as a toucher turning too short, through mistaking the post. 1932 Wodehouse Doctor Sally viii. 78, I came within a toucher of saying, ‘pause before it is too late!’ 1954 ― Jeeves & Feudal Spirit xviii. 173 The hand of doom within a toucher of descending. |
▪ II. toucher
obs. form of tocher.