touchwood
(ˈtʌtʃwʊd)
[f. touch- 1 c + wood n.]
Wood or anything of woody nature, in such a state as to catch fire readily, and which can be used as tinder. a. The soft white substance into which wood is converted by the action of certain fungi, especially of Polyporus squamosus, and which has the property of burning for many hours when once ignited, and is occasionally self-luminous.
By confusion the name is sometimes applied to the powdery snuff-coloured mass into which wood is sometimes converted without the agency of fungi, by a process of slow chemical combustion (eremacausis), which is not distinguishable from the effects of dry rot, except by the absence of fungous spawn. (M. J. Berkeley in Treas. Bot. (1866).
| 1579 Lyly Euphues, (Arb.) 62, I, but Euphues, hath she not hard also that the dry touchewoode is kindled with lyme..that the fire quickly burneth the flaxe? 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. iii. ii. ii. i. (1651) 450 As match or touchwood takes fire, so doth an idle person love. 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. ii. v. 89 To make white powder... The best I know is by the powder of rotten willowes; spunck, or touchwood prepared, might perhaps make it russet. 1706 E. Ward Wooden World Diss. (1708) 14 He had rather see the whole Fleet parch'd up like Touchwood, for want of Water. 1799 Med. Jrnl. II. 298 Observations..on the luminous property of touchwood. 1809 Malkin Gil Blas iv. vii. ¶13 Gonzales, dry as touchwood, with all its inflammability. 1887 T. Hardy Woodlanders III. ix. 183 The rain had imparted a phosphorescence to the pieces of touchwood. 1898 Watts-Dunton Aylwin xv. vi, A fallen willow tree, the inside of which was all touchwood. |
b. A name given to various fungi, esp. two species of Polyporus (P. or Fomes fomentarius and P. or F. igniarius), also called touchwood boletus, or to the tinder called ‘amadou’ made from them. Cf. tinder.
The former of these is found on oak, beech, birch, lime, etc., the latter (which requires a process of preparation) on ash, poplar, willow, plane, fir, etc.
| 1598 Florio, Pano..touchwood, or a spungie swelling on trees like a mushrume. 1666 Pepys Diary 12 Nov., His skeleton [is here seen], with the flesh on; but all tough and dry like a spongy dry leather, or touchwood all upon his bones. 1688 R. Holme Armoury ii. 85/2 Touchwood [is] a kind of hard, dry, spungy Mushroom. 1778 Lightfoot Flora Scot. (1789) II. 1034 Boletus igniarius. Touchwood Boletus... An excellent touchwood is made from this Fungus by..pounding and boiling it up with saltpetre. 1845–50 A. H. Lincoln Lect. Bot. 199 The genus Boletus contains the touchwood, or spunk, which is sometimes used as tinder. |
c. fig. Said of a thing or person that easily ‘takes fire’, or which, like tinder, ‘kindles’ something else (quot. 1601); esp. an irascible or passionate person, one easily incensed. Now rare.
| [1601 Dent Pathw. Heaven 204 Sins of oppression..be the very fire-brands of Gods wrath, and as it were touch-wood, to kindle his anger.] 1617 Middleton & Rowley Fair Quarrel ii. i, The Colonel, soon enrag'd, as he's all touchwood. c 1620 Fletcher & Massinger Lit. French Lawyer ii. iii, Peace touchwood. 1761 G. Colman Jealous Wife i. i, She is all Impetuosity and Fire.—A very Magazine of Touchwood and Gunpowder. 1840 Life of Origen vii. 66 Wood, hay, stubble, and that which soonest burns of anything, the touchwood of denial. |
d. attrib. and Comb.
| 1784 Cowper Task vi. 688 From his touchwood trunk the mulberry-tree Supplied such relics as devotion holds Still sacred. 1864 Tennyson Aylmer's F. 514 There the manorial lord too curiously Raking in that millennial touchwood-dust Found for himself a bitter treasure-trove. |