tactile, a.
(ˈtæktɪl, -aɪl)
[ad. L. tactilis tangible, f. tact-, ppl. stem of tangĕre to touch; cf. F. tactile.]
1. Perceptible to the touch; tangible.
| 1615 H. Crooke Body of Man 717 Beside the Sapour it hath also many Tangible or Tactile qualities. 1706 Phillips (ed. 6) s.v., The chief Tactile Qualities are Heat, Cold, Driness, Moistness, and Hardness. 1898 Allbutt's Syst. Med. V. 789 Certain visible and tactile signs. |
2. a. Of or pertaining to touch; characterized or influenced by, or relating to the sense of touch. Hence absol. as n., one for whom the sense of touch predominates over the other senses.
| 1657–83 Evelyn Hist. Relig. (1850) I. 34 The tactile, auditory, and olfactory senses. 1855 Bain Senses & Int. ii. ii. §2 (1864) 155 That high tactile sensibility distinguishing the tip of the tongue. 1874 Carpenter Ment. Phys. i. i. §10 (1879) 11 Our own Tactile Sense (under which general head may be combined the Sense of Touch, the Sense of Muscular Exertion, and the Mental Sense of Effort). 1876 Foster Phys. iii. iv. (1879) 532 The tactile sensation is..a symbol to us of some external event. 1892 [see motile a.]. 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 299 Tactile anæsthesia over..the whole of the left side. 1917 [see audile n.]. 1956 [see audile a.]. 1971 A. Montagu Touching v. 169 Children who are highly tactile but have no accompanying sexual interest in others. |
b. Of organs: Endowed with the sense of touch.
| 1768 Tucker Lt. Nat. (1834) I. 388 The gustatory papillæ of the tongue and tactile papillæ of the fingers. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. vii. (1878) 172 The external ears of the common mouse..no doubt serve as tactile organs. 1873 A. Flint Nerv. Syst. i. 39 The name tactile corpuscles implies that these bodies are connected with the sense of touch. |
c. Art. tactile value: B. Berenson's term for the illusion of tangibility which a painter can create with regard to the figures and objects he represents; the attribute or impression of a tangible quality. Also transf.
| 1896 B. Berenson Florentine Painters of the Renaissance ii. 4 Every time our eyes recognise reality we are..giving tactile values to retinal impressions. 1907 ― North Italian Painters of Renaissance 146 In figure painting, the type of all painting, I have endeavoured to set forth that the principal..sources of life-enhancement are tactile values, movement, and space composition, by which I mean ideated sensation. 1908 E. M. Forster Room with View ii. 22 The traveller who has gone to Italy to study the tactile values of Giotto, or the corruption of the Papacy. 1919 A. N. Whitehead Princ. Nat. Knowl. 88 This property of ‘conveying’ an object..is already well⁓known in the theory of art-criticism, as is evidenced in such phrases as ‘tactile-values’. 1938 R. G. Collingwood Princ. Art vii. 146 Mr. Berenson..taught his pupils..to look in paintings for what he called ‘tactile values’. 1962 Listener 15 Nov. 832/1 It [sc. a play] is remarkable because of what one might call, after Berenson, its tactile values. 1970 Oxf. Compan. Art 1120/1 Berenson was notoriously incapable of appreciating those schools of modern—and ancient—art which subordinate tactile values to other qualities of pictorial design. |
d. Comb., as tactile-visual adj.
| 1969 New Scientist 27 Mar. 678/1 A tactile-visual system..should provide valuable information concerning such psychological questions as the nature of sensory processing. 1978 Verbatim May 16/1 My point is that the oral-aural mode is intricately combined with the tactile-visual mode. |
Hence ˈtactilely adv.
| 1953 A. C. Kinsey et al. Sexual Behavior Human Female xiv. 578 Some areas which are tactilely sensitive..are of no especial importance as sources of erotic response. 1977 Verbatim Feb. 8/1 It takes some talent and not much money to design and manufacture a book artistically, one that provides as much aestheic pleasure visually and tactilely as it does in its reading. |
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▸ Of a person: given to touching others, esp. as a spontaneous expression of affection or sympathy.
| 1971 A. Montagu Touching v. 169 Children who are highly tactile but have no accompanying sexual interest in others until further development has occurred. 1982 People Weekly 24 May 41 Tom turned on the lights, introduced himself and took her in his arms. He's a very tactile person. I thought: at last, a human being. 1990 ‘M. Caine’ Coward's Chron. (BNC) 91 Dad was a gruff bear of a Yorkshire man, warm but not tactile, his rare hugs self-conscious, one-armed and brief. 1997 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 24 June 24/6 I'm as tactile with men as I am with women. |