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Reach Out and Touch the Meaning of Tactile
Tactile has many relatives in English, from the oft-synonymous tangible to familiar words like intact, tact, tangent, contingent, and even entire. All of these can be traced back to the Latin verb tangere, meaning “to touch.” Tactile was adopted by English speakers in the early 1600s (possibly by way of the French tactile) from the Latin adjective tactilis (“tangible”). In light of tactile having tangere for a touchstone, its dual senses of “perceptible by touch” and “of, relating to, or being the sense of touch” are perfectly sensible. Since the advent of film, television, and, ahem, touchscreens, a new sense also appears to be developing, as tactile is increasingly used to suggest that something visual is particularly evocative or suggestive of a certain texture.
Examples of tactile in a Sentence
Oliver Sacks, New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2002
There is a tactile and therefore somatic dimension to stroking the chalk that keeps the artist in constant, responsible and responsive touch with his emerging creation.
—Jed Perl, New Republic, 17 June 2002
The keyboard has good tactile feedback, and the touch pad is responsive without being too twitchy.
—Bruce Brown, PC Magazine, 20 Feb. 2001
… nothing prepared me for the tactile reality of the original volumes, leaf after carefully written leaf over which his hand had travelled …
—Edmund Morris, New Yorker, 16 Jan. 1995
Near midday the heat of the sun bounced up from the bare patches of soil to hit with an almost tactile force.
—Edward O. Wilson, Smithsonian, October 1984
The thick brushstrokes give the painting a tactile quality.
Chris Gallagher, USA TODAY, 2 Feb. 2025
Its retro design, which skips a color screen for a slim digital display set below tactile knobs, stokes nostalgia while delivering excellent sound quality.
—Parker Hall, WIRED, 30 Jan. 2025
Rough and tactile linen yarns are also ubiquitous, as in Botto Giuseppe’s Petalo blend of mélange linen and slubbed silk with a bright texture, or in Lanificio dell’Olivo’s Scoop Lighting full linen yarn dyed according to the lessivé technique.
—Martino Carrera, WWD, 28 Jan. 2025
Interior surfaces are covered in soft leather and microsuede, and complementary trim materials add visual and tactile contrast.
—Michael Harley, Forbes, 21 Jan. 2025
See all Example Sentences for tactile 
Dictionary Entries Near tactile
Cite this Entry
“Tactile.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tactile. Accessed 8 Feb. 2025.
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tactile
2 of 2 noun
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