tact

Meaning

Noun

1. (uncountable) Sensitive mental touch; special skill or faculty; keen perception or discernment; ready power of appreciating and doing what is required by circumstances; the ability to say the right thing.
2. (uncountable) Propriety; manners (etiquette).

Verb

To use a tact (a kind of verbal operant).

Synonyms

diplomacy

delicacy

tactfulness

finesse

skill

cleverness

address

resourceful

prudence

tactics

discretion

quick-witted

tenuity

tenuousness

thinness

niceness

ticklishness

nicety

polish

🇵🇱

wit

witty

refinement

comity

fineness

artifice

gauziness

sheerness

shrewdness

sleaziness

slenderness

grace

slimness

ability

strategy

subtlety

taste

capacity

perception

artfulness statesmanship

stratagem

beat

brain

🧠

consideration

daintiness

diffidence

discernment

faire

flimsiness

good manners

means

Translations

tact

tatto

tacto

tact

tato

doigté

Takt

maat

ritme

Gewandtheit

delicatezza

beleid

Taktgefühl

mesure

Feingefühl

Pronounced as (IPA)

/tækt/

Etymology

Borrowed from French tact, following a semantic shift from earlier tact (“sense of touch; feeling”), borrowed from Latin tāctus (“touched”). The borrowing was likely influenced by earlier English tact (“sense of touch; feeling”), which was a parallel borrowing directly from the Latin.