Touchable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Something that can be physically felt or reached with one's hands or body
2. A quality indicative of objects that are physically reachable or can be sensed through direct contact with the skin or fingers
3. Able to be felt or perceived directly by physical contact

Etymology: "Touchable" is about as plain as English word-building gets: the verb "touch" with the suffix "-able," meaning "capable of being." It came into Middle English in the form "touchable" or "toucheable," built the same way the language had long formed words like "readable" and "breakable." Because the suffix is so productive, the word carries no special history of its own; it simply describes whatever can be reached by the hand. The suffix itself is the more interesting part. "-able" came into English through Old French from Latin "-abilis," a formation that attached to verb stems to mean "able to be." Once English speakers had borrowed enough of these, they began attaching the suffix to native verbs like "touch," which is how the word took shape in the Middle English period.

Synonyms: tactile, physical, palpable

Antonyms: intangible, abstract