foretouch

present singular third person foretouches · participle present foretouching · participle past foretouched · past foretouched

1. transitiveTo touch beforehand; touch upon in advance.

plural foretouches

1. figurativelyliteralA touch made in advance; (by extension) a prelude or foreshadow.

   I felt its foretouch.

   1962, John Strachey, The Strangled Cry, page 34

   5 more examples

   Is it progress at all, or is it retrogression, is it light or darkness, is it civilization or a foretouch of the disrupting force of intellectual anarchy and moral decay?

   1863, Wiseman Review, volume 52, page 416

   It was as if something of the Beyond unrolled itself in exquisite promise and foretouch; as if great gates were open, through which one day - into which this day was transfiguring - they might sail in to an eternal blessedness.

   1881, Adeline Dutton Train Whitney, Odd, Or Even?, page 196

   There was a foretouch of death in the thought.

   1905, Good Words, page 904

   A foretouch of future shadows fell on them when they heard of Noel and Gregor MacLean having joined the London Scottish.

   1914, John Oxenham, Antigonos, page 281

   In the middle distance a tall white skyscraper stood up, a prelude, or a foretouch to a great yellowish black cloud behind it.

   1916, Theodore Dreiser, A Hoosier Holiday, page 57