tactual

comparative more tactual · superlative most tactual · alternative tactuall

1. Of, or relating to the sense of touch.

   […] the later sovereigns of England have not been tactual healers, and the disease once honored with the name “king’s evil” now bears the humbler one of “scrofula” […]

   1906, Ambrose Bierce, “king's evil”, in The Cynic’s Word Book, London: Arthur F. Bird […], →OCLC, page 211

   3 more examples

   […] how doth Psyche heare or see That hath nor eyes nor eares? She sees more clear Then we that see but secundarily. We see at distance by a circular Diffusion of that spright of this great sphere Of th’Universe: Her sight is tactuall. The sunne and all the starres that do appear She feels them in herself […]

   1642, Henry More, Psychodia Platonica, Cambridge, Book 3, p. 61

   My world is built of touch-sensations, devoid of physical color and sound […]. Every object is associated in my mind with tactual qualities which, combined in countless ways, give me a sense of power, of beauty, or of incongruity: for with my hands I can feel the comic as well as the beautiful in the outward appearance of things.

   1908, Helen Keller, chapter 1, in The World I Live In,, New York: The Century Co., page 8

   ‘Going to the Feelies this evening, Henry?’ enquired the Assistant Predestinator. ‘I hear the new one at the Alhambra is first-rate. There’s a love scene on a bearskin rug; they say it’s marvellous. Every hair of the bear reproduced. The most amazing tactual effects.’

   1932, Aldous Huxley, chapter 3, in Brave New World, London: Chatto & Windus

   Synonyms: tactile