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tact

/tækt/ noun

Latin root: tāctus Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about tact at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

  1. Consideration in dealing with others and avoiding giving offense.

Origin

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.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)