See Touch-and-go.
Verb. (old colloquial).—1. Generic for getting: spec. (Grose) to get money in hand. Also in modern usage = to obtain speciously or secretly, by methods that will not bear too close a scrutiny; and hence (thieves') = to steal: in Australia to act unfairly: cf. subs.
1726. Vanbrugh and Cibber, Provoked Husband [Oliphant, New Eng., ii. 159. A man touches money (obtains it), a new sense of the verb].
1749. Smollett, Gil Blas (1812), iii. ii. All that I have been able to touch being no more than three thousand ducats.
1771. Smollett, Humphry Clinker (1900), ii. 134. England, I conceive, may touch about one million sterling a year.
1796. Holman, Abroad and at Home, i. 3. I could not go abroad without her, so I touch'd father's cash.
1862. Cornhill, Nov., 648. We have just touched for a rattling stake of sugar at Brum.
1877. Horsley, Jottings from Jail. One day I took the rattler from Broad Street to Acton. I did not touch them, but worked my way to Shepherd's Bush.
1879. Macm. Mag., xl. 502. I touched for a red toy and red tackle.
1888. Sims, Plank Bed Ballad [Referee, 12 Feb., 3]. A spark prop a pal . . . and I had touched.
1888. St. Louis Globe Democrat. A dip touched the Canadian sheriff for his watch and massive chain while he was reading the Riot Act.
c. 1889. Bird o' Freedom [S. J. and C.]. He ran against a wealthy friend whom he thought to touch. 'No, my boy,' said the friend, 'I never give or lend money.'
1896. Lillard, Poker Stories, 102. I knew a thing or two about poker, and it would have required George Appo himself to have touched me for my wad.
1897. Marshall, Pomes, 17. He lived upon credit, and what he could touch.
2. (colloquial).—To be equal to, capable of, or bear comparison with. To have a touch = to make an attempt.
1713. Steele, Guardian, No. 82. Mr. William Peer distinguished himself particularly in two characters, which no man ever could touch but himself.
1838. Dickens, Oliver Twist, xliii. Wasn't he always top-sawyer among you all? Is there one of you that could touch him, or come near him?
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. i. 162. I thought I'd have a touch at the same thing. But you see I never could rise money enough to make a do of it.
1865. Major Jack Downing, 30. The children of Israel going out of Egypt with their flocks and their little ones is no touch to it [i.e., the first day of May in New York].
4. (venery).—To copulate: see Ride: as subs. = the act of kind; whence touch-hole = the female pudendum: see Monosyllable; touch-trap = the penis: see Prick; touch-crib = a brothel. Also (5) (or to touch up) to grope a woman; (6) to roke a man; touchable = (1) ripe (q.v.), and (2) in trim for the act; also to touch up (Grose) = to masturbate. 'Not to be touched with a pair of tongs' (of a foundered whore): see Barge-pole.
1603. Shakspeare, Meas. for Meas. v. Free from touch or soil with her.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, i. xii. His governesses burst out laughing. . . . One would call it her pillicock . . . her touch-trap, her flap-dowdle.
1661. Merry Drollery [Ebsworth], 229. No man will touch her without a pair of tongs.
1668. Lestrange, Quevedo (1678), 22. Your Beauties can never want gallants to lay their appetites. . . . Whereas nobody will touch the ill-favoured without a pair of tongs.
1670. Cotton, Virgil Travestie (1770), 80. If Æneas be a spark they there . . . May take a gentle Touch together: So each of other may have Proof.
