Word Study
touching
CIDE DICTIONARY
touching, a.
Affecting; moving; pathetic; as, a touching tale. [1913 Webster]
touching, prep.
Concerning; with respect to. [1913 Webster]
"Now, as touching things offered unto idols." [1913 Webster]
touching, n.
The sense or act of feeling; touch. [1913 Webster]
OXFORD DICTIONARY
touching, adj. & prep.
--adj. moving; pathetic (a touching incident; touching confidence).
--prep. literary concerning; about.
--adj. moving; pathetic (a touching incident; touching confidence).
--prep. literary concerning; about.
Derivative
touchingly adv. touchingness n.
Etymology
ME f. TOUCH: (prep.) f. OF touchant pres. part. (as TOUCH)
THESAURUS
touching
about, abutting, adjoining, affecting, afflictive, against, anent, apropos of, as for, as regards, as respects, as to, attouchement, bitter, bleak, bordering, borrowing, brush, brushing, caress, caressing, cheerless, comfortless, compassionate, concerning, contact, contacting, conterminous, contiguous, contingence, contingent, debt, debtor, deplorable, depressing, depressive, discomforting, dismal, dismaying, distressful, distressing, doleful, dolorific, dolorogenic, dolorous, dreary, emotional, emotive, feeling, financing, fingering, friction, frottage, glance, glancing, graze, grazing, grievous, handling, heartrending, hire purchase, hitting, hitting-up, hocking, impingement, impingence, impingent, impinging, impressive, in connection with, in contact, in point of, in re, in reference to, in regard to, in relation to, in relation with, in respect to, installment buying, installment plan, joyless, juxtaposed, kiss, lamentable, manipulation, meeting, money-raising, mortgaging, mournful, moving, nudge, nudging, of, on, osculation, osculatory, overlapping, painful, palpation, pathetic, pawning, pertaining to, pertinent to, petting, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, pledging, poignant, pressure, re, referring to, regarding, regrettable, relating to, relative to, respecting, responsive, rub, rubbing, rueful, sad, saddening, sharp, sore, sorrowful, soul-stirring, speaking of, stirring, stroking, sympathetic, taction, tangency, tangent, tangential, tear-jerking, tender, tentative contact, to, touch, uncomfortable, up against, upon, with regard to, with respect to, woebegone, woeful, wretchedROGET THESAURUS
touching
Painfulness
N painfulness, trouble, care, trial, affliction, infliction, blow, stroke, burden, load, curse, bitter pill, bitter draught, waters of bitterness, annoyance, grievance, nuisance, vexation, mortification, sickener, bore, bother, pother, hot water, sea of troubles, hornet's nest, plague, pest, cancer, ulcer, sting, thorn, canker, scorpion, dagger, scourge, carking care, canker worm of care, mishap, misfortune, desagrement, esclandre, rub, source of irritation, source of annoyance, wound, open sore, sore subject, skeleton in the closet, thorn in the flesh, thorn in one's side, where the shoe pinches, gall and wormwood, sorry sight, heavy news, provocation, affront, head and front of one's offending, infestation, molestation, malignity, causing pain, hurting, hurtful, painful, dolorific, dolorous, unpleasant, unpleasing, displeasing, disagreeable, unpalatable, bitter, distasteful, uninviting, unwelcome, undesirable, undesired, obnoxious, unacceptable, unpopular, thankless, unsatisfactory, untoward, unlucky, uncomfortable, distressing, afflicting, afflictive, joyless, cheerless, comfortless, dismal, disheartening, depressing, depressive, dreary, melancholy, grievous, piteous, woeful, rueful, mournful, deplorable, pitiable, lamentable, sad, affecting, touching, pathetic, irritating, provoking, stinging, annoying, aggravating, mortifying, galling, unaccommodating, invidious, vexatious, troublesome, tiresome, irksome, wearisome, plaguing, plaguy, awkward, importunate, teasing, pestering, bothering, harassing, worrying, tormenting, carking, intolerable, insufferable, insupportable, unbearable, unendurable, past bearing, not to be borne, not to be endured, more than flesh and blood can bear, enough to drive one mad, enough to provoke a saint, enough to make a parson swear, enough to gag a maggot, shocking, terrific, grim, appalling, crushing, dreadful, fearful, frightful, thrilling, tremendous, dire, heart-breaking, heart-rending, heart-wounding, heart-corroding, heart-sickening, harrowing, rending, odious, hateful, execrable, repulsive, repellent, abhorrent, horrid, horrible, horrific, horrifying, offensive, nauseous, nauseating, disgusting, sickening, revolting, nasty, loathsome, loathful, fulsome, vile, hideous, sharp, acute, sore, severe, grave, hard, harsh, cruel, biting, caustic, cutting, corroding, consuming, racking, excruciating, searching, grinding, grating, agonizing, envenomed, catheretic, pyrotic, ruinous, disastrous, calamitous, tragical, desolating, withering, burdensome, onerous, oppressive, cumbrous, cumbersome, painfully, with pain, deuced, Int, hinc illae lachrymae!, surgit amari aliquid, the place being too hot to hold one, the iron entering into the soul, he jests at scars that never felt a wound, I must be cruel only to be kind, what deep wounds ever closed without a scar?.Contiguity
N contiguity, contact, proximity, apposition, abuttal, juxtaposition, abutment, osculation, meeting, appulse, rencontre, rencounter, syzygy, coincidence, coexistence, adhesion, touching, (touch), borderland, frontier, tangent, abutter, contiguous, touching, in contact, conterminous, end to end, osculatory, pertingent, tangential, hand to hand, close to, with no interval, contiguity, contact, proximity, apposition, abuttal, juxtaposition, abutment, osculation, meeting, appulse, rencontre, rencounter, syzygy, coincidence, coexistence, adhesion, touching, (touch), borderland, frontier, tangent, abutter, contiguous, touching, in contact, conterminous, end to end, osculatory, pertingent, tangential, hand to hand, close to, with no interval.For further exploring for "touching" in Webster Dictionary Online