touch n.1
1. a trick, a dodge.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Pardoner and Friar Biii: And yf thou playe me suche another touche / Ish knocke thee on the costarde. |
2. an act of sexual intercourse, thus take a touch, to have intercourse.
| Select City Quaeries 15: […] to take a Touch now and then with a Citizens wife. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Eng. Rogue I 381: Is that a Brothel, or an House of State [...] This was a stately house, and yet was such; In stately houses Ladies take a touch. |
3. any item that will persuade purchasers to buy, albeit within certain price limits; thus a sixpence touch, a guinea touch.
 | Diary 22 Sept. n.p.: At night went to the ball at the Angel, a guinea-touch [F&H]. | |
| preface note ‘To the Bookseller’ in Works (1801) n.p.: Print my preface in such form as, in the bookseller’s phrase, will make a sixpenny touch . | |
| , , | | Sl. Dict. 260: TOUCH, a slang expression in common use in phrases which express the extent to which a person is interested or affected as ‘a fourpenny touch,’ i.e., costing that amount. |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| Ulysses 573: There was a dosshouse in Marlborough Street, Mrs Maloney’s, but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables. |
4. (also touch-off) an act of theft, esp. pickpocketing.
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Autobiog. 105: Towards evening I got a touch at a cove’s suck. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Nat. Police Gaz. (MY) 18 July 390/1: Ingenious Touch [...] Phillsburg [...] felt for his money, and [...] found in its place another pocket-book filled with newspaper instead of money [OED]. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bell’s Life in Sydney 11 Sept. 3/2: She heard May say to her husband that they had done ‘touch’. | |
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 48/2: The most splendid ‘touch’ of the campaign was already in our grasp. | |
| Robbery Under Arms (1922) 43: Whatever made ’em think of such a big touch as that? | |
| Tales of Mean Streets (1983) 153: Why did other gonophs get lucky touches for half a century of quids at a time. | |
| Types from City Streets 315: I’m living on a couple of good touches I made last spring. | |
| ‘Charlie the Wolf’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 37: ‘You hear it rings sometimes a bell?’ ‘Yeh — I made it. Sounded like a touch-off.’. | |
| Chicago May (1929) 36: I made a big touch in New York, one night. | |
| (con. 1905–25) Professional Thief (1956) 13: The mob had made a touch of a Spanish shawl, worth three or four hundred dollars. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| On the Waterfront (1964) 262: It’s the sweetest touch in the harbour. | |
| Scene (1996) 34: The girls had picked one particular store because everyone considered it a hard touch. | |
| You Flash Bastard 119: Wasn’t a bad little touch. Radio, cassette and a briefcase. Thought maybe I’d get a couple of quid for the briefcase. | |
| in That Was Business, This Is Personal 15: We had a right touch, about a couple of hundred quid apiece. |
5. a blow.
| Chester Chron. 9 Oct. 4/3: Now what could I do when I got such a wallop from him? I was obliged to give him a touch and so I touched him with a quart pot . |
6. (UK Und.) an arrest.
| ‘The Slap-Up Cracksman’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 42: The traps are snoozed – so we can swig / Without fear of touch or pig. |
7. (also the touch, touchdown) the act of cadging a loan, usu. small; thus the loan.
| Better Late than Never 41: What, are you come to the Doctor to be curs’d with a touch. | |
| Artie (1963) 29: Next day they had to make a hot touch for a short coin so as to get the price of a couple o’ sinkers and a good old ‘draw one’. | |
| Sure 128: So I make a light touch on Duchess in de cause of education. | |
| Arthur’s 23: We’d got enough money saved up from the looney touch. | |
| diary 17 July Long Carry (1970) 192: Writing appealing letters to sympathetic females at home or as we termed it ‘doing the lonely soldier touch.’. | |
| Hand-made Fables 159: All the Overture Stuff about the Spring Planting and the Health of the Family did not camouf Ebeneezer. He could feel a Touch coming. | |
| Inimitable Jeeves 32: All this was leading up to a touch. | |
| Judge (NY) 91 July-Dec. 31: Touchdown - A loan. | |
| ‘All Horse Players Die Broke’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 711: He wins so much dough that he even pays off a few old touches. | |
| Nobody Lives Forever 6: Doc saw him shying off from a touch and it amused him. | |
| Of Love And Hunger 202: That ten quid was the last touch all right. | |
| Junkie (1966) 45: Everyone had to admit he was a right guy, and always good for a small touch. | |
| Fings I i: He is very generous and is always good for a touch [...] and always lets everyone have things on the slate from his tea bar. | |
| Return of the Hood 57: She was [...] a sucker for a touch from every stray cat with a hard luck story. | |
| Up and Down Under 79: I really and truly expected a ‘touch’ for a couple of bob. | |
| Lowspeak 141: Touch – money successfully and slightly dishonestly obtained by a gamble or by borrowing. |
8. (US Und.) the money gained illegally, e.g. that which is ‘stolen’ by a confidence trickster’s scheme; also in fig. use.
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 252: I t’ink he’ll stand a swell touch. | |
| Sun (NY) 27 July 40/1: ‘Looks like the boys have made another good touch,’ said Wise Jimmy. | |
| You Can’t Win (2000) 168: A thousand dollars was considered a good ‘touch.’. | |
| ‘Pearls Are a Nuisance’ in Spanish Blood (1946) 128: They are out for a quick touch. | |
| Big Con 26: The size of the touches (the gross amount taken from the victim) has increased beyond the fondest dreams of old-timers. | |
| Across the Board 138: Shot oppa you mouth-a. You wanna getta toucha-a from all-a deesa bumba. | |
| Crust on its Uppers 20: I had a right touch teaching at a languages school. | |
| ‘Sunrise at Midnight’ in Fireworks (1988) 167: I never tried for another touch, and I ain’t going to neither! | |
| Lowspeak 141: Touch – money successfully and slightly dishonestly obtained by a gamble. | |
| TwentyFourSeven [film script] (1998) 82: Why don’t we photograph him in bed in his wildlife snake pants? Then we can bribe him, a touch. | |
| Raiders 6: When you’ve had a nice touch from a jug you always keep it in mind to rob again. |
9. (US Und.) the climax of a confidence trick, when the victim hands over their money.
| Confessions of a Con Man 124: And he wasn’t one of those ‘twenty-minute men’ who can’t hold a sucker after the touch. | |
| Nobody Lives for Ever 23: There’d never been another con man like him. Some of his victims didn’t even get sore at him after the touch. Several came back for more. |
10. one from whom one obtains a loan or a monetary gift.
| implied in easy touch | |
| Urban Grimshaw 286: In our vocabulary, this meant a victim, a dupe, a greenhorn, a touch [...] not a kill. |
11. the victim of a confidence trick.
| London’s Und. 134: They’d think nothing of travelling through six countries with a really good ‘touch’ — i.e. victim. |
12. a piece of good fortune; e.g. an acquittal.
| They Drive by Night 74: Lucky touch if he got a job on a ship. | |
| Lowspeak 121: Right touch – a lucky and unexpected acquittal. | |
| Inside 22: It was a right touch, thought I was looking at a five. | |
| Layer Cake 76: This is a touch, it was well worth going out tonight after all. | |
| Viva La Madness 282: [He] knows he’s had a touch, telling his mates the mug was only getting a blowjob while I chored his fuckin coat. |
13. a woman who can be easily picked up.
| [ | | Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 30: Any gentleman that is dispos’d for a touch of the times, may take his choice for the price of a penny]. |
| Riverslake 41: The Pole didn’t say nothing about the Bastard’s old woman being a touch. Vodavitch made it up, just to get him hurled. | |
| Chancer 23: I always wanted to be in Who’s Who so that I could list all the ten-bob Soho touches I knew. |
14. (N.Z.) one’s turn to buy a round of drinks; in cit. 1895 the round itself.
| Old Times in Bush 150: Look here, master, these chaps is all ‘fly blown,’ and we would like to give them a ‘touch’ before we go; will you advance ten shillings? | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 114/2: touch somebody’s turn to buy a round of drinks. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. |
15. a clue.
| Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] Old Bill got a touch on who whacked Oliver Mannion. |
In compounds
(US) a beggar, one who is always asking for a loan.
| Brooklyn Dly Eagle (NY) 27 Feb. ?/5: On the day an act opens at a theater the crowd of touch-men is so large you can hardly get through them. [...] Actors are [...] loath to turn down a touch-artist on opening day. | |
| ‘On Broadway’ 2 Oct. [synd. col.] 25 years of [...] giving the brush-off to touch artists and salesmen. | |
| Harder They Fall (1971) 123: Crumbs [...] touch artists and no-goods, but still my guys. | |
| Lubbock Morn. Avalanche (TX) 7 June 9: [headline] Writer Bogies Par When Tough Artist Repays Borrowed Money. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Crime in S. Afr. 106: A ‘mooch’, a ‘dingaloo’, or a ‘touch artist’ is a beggar or crook. | |
| Indep. Press-Telegram (Long Beach, CA) Southland Mag. 25 Oct. 24/5: Many professional touch artists cloak their begging under the guise of salesmanship. | |
| Odd Spot of Bother 122: Of all the barflies, shout-dodgers, compo-kings, touch-artists, takes, spruikers, bludgers, spongers, and other hopeful hangers-on. | |
| q. in Lugosi 128: The secret to success for every ‘touch’ artist [...] is to find a successful person’s Achilles’ heel and then work it over until you get the money . | |
| Asbury Park Press (NJ) 13 May B14/4: The one about the touch artist who said he was running for president and wanted a campaign contribution. |
(US Und.) synon. for Murphy (Game), the n. (1) in which a client, lured into a room by a prostitute, is beaten and robbed.
| N.Y. Daily Trib. 27 July 1/5: The Touch Game Again. [...] She is well known to the police officers as an adept at the touch game. |
(US) one who is constantly scrounging.
| Buffalo Courier (NY) 12 Mar. 56/1: A ‘touch guy’ is a fellow who makes a business of borrowing money from actors. |
(US Und.) any tavern or similar establishment where victims are robbed, beaten and even killed; they may also be subjected to the Murphy (Game), the n. (1); also attrib.
| Flash (NY) 26 Sept. n.p.: He lies under the bed and she and her partner upon it. He pickets the pockets while she wheedles the proprietor [...] They have many ‘touch houses’. | |
| Jacksonville Republican (AL) 15 Nov. 1/5: It will prove to have been what is termed by the police, ‘a touch house robbery’. | |
| N.Y. Herald 11 Jan. 2/4: Nearly all of the ‘touch houses,’ as they are technically called, are situated in this ward, and midnight robbery, through the operations of their inmates, nightly occur. | |
| N.Y. Dly Herald 18 May 1/5: Two men who have long been known to the police as keepers of ‘touch’ houses, or, ‘panel thieves’. |
(Aus.) a petty thief or confidence trickster.
| Truth (Sydney) 23 Nov. 12/3: The touch merchant then casually mentions [...] that he knows a man who will pay up to double the lawful price. | |
| Herald (Melbourne) 16 Sept. 4/7: Weed out every discourteous, ‘touch merchant’ type of driver. | |
| Canberra Times (ACT) 24 Jan. 30/10: Trotters [...] Fiery Luck, Rockin Dale, Scorchin Sun, Touch Merchant. | |
| Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 49: Touch Merchant Petty Cheat. |
see sense 3 above.
In phrases
(US) to reminisce.
| USA Confidential 396: We were chewing up old touches with a retired Chicago dick. |
(also cut up, cut up old dough) to reminisce over old successes, villainies etc.
| S.F. Examiner 23 Feb. 15/5: He argued with Sam, cut up some old touches with Bob [...] and insulted Jim. | |
| Wise-crack Dict. 7/1: Cut up old dough Talk over old times. | |
| in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 30: Cutting up the latest scandal from the local barber shop. | |
| ‘Blood Pressure’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 84: Rusty Charley and Knife O’Halloran [...] are cutting up old touches of the time when they run with the Hudson Dusters together. | |
| Limey 218: I was one of a group of convicts there yarning about past experiences and people we had known – ‘cutting up touches’ as they say. | |
| McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon (2001) 125: He and Dutch would get together and cut up touches. | |
| Honest Rainmaker (1991) 119: We had many old touches to cut up together. | |
| Cannibals 249: Let’s sit down and cut up some touches. | |
| In La-La Land We Trust (1999) 33: Not time to guzzle a couple of beers, cut up any touches, tell each other any lies or dirty stories. | |
| Lowspeak. |
(US Und.) to share out the spoils of criminal acts.
| Und. Speaks 28/2: Cut up the touch, division of the spoils or plunder. | |
| et al. DAUL 54/2: Cut up a touch. [...] 2. To divide the loot from a specific crime. |
1. (und.) a swindle or robbery that can be carried out without difficulty.
| Inter Ocean (Chicago) 14 Oct. 9/7: Clever Bank Swindler [...] The fact that the man made such an easy touch [...] shows him to be something of an artist. | |
| Knoxville Sentinel (TN) 25 Jan. 2/6: he made an easy touch / Negro Walked off With A Farmer’s Basket of Eggs. | |
| Buffalo Rev. (NY) 14 Apr. 6/2: He deflt lifted the pocketbook [...] The lad remarked that ‘it was an easy touch’. | |
| Inside the Und. 34: ‘Jim’ makes great play about what turned out to be an ‘easy touch.’. |
2. one who can be easily solicited for money or favours.
| Cameron Co. Press (Emporium, PA) 8 Feb. 4/5: The Shah finds the Czar an easy ‘touch’. | |
| ‘On Broadway’ 23 Nov. [synd. col.] ‘Sherm I need five C’s’ . . . ‘Sure,’ said Sherman, shelling off the five hundred. . . . Her rich friend couldn’t believe such an easy touch existed. | |
| Nobody Lives for Ever 67: He’d expected her to be dowdy; or fat and kittenish; and an easy touch. She was neither fat, kittenish, nor dowdy, and she looked like anything put a pushover. | |
| Doing Time 101: [O]ther prisoners [...] see this, and suddenly to them I’m an easy touch, they see me as a softy they can get favours from. | |
| Fixx 223: I was not the easy touch I had been when I was single. | |
| Co-Leaders: The Power of Great Partnerships 75: Even in death Merrill remained an easy touch. Philanthropy was a passion with him. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 64/1: easy touch (also soft touch) n. a person who may be easily persuaded to lend or give away his property, usually an easy target for a con, trick or swindle. | |
| Workin’ Man Blues 123: Cooley was also known as an easy touch, a man who had made big bucks, [...] and who was always generous. |
3. money, whether loaned or extorted, that is easily obtained.
| Amer. Mag. Oct. 98/2: That story about a blackmailer showing up at three o'clock in the afternoon, making an easy touch for five grand, and then sticking around till midnight is just silly. |
4. a situation which is easily exploitable.
| Scotland on Sun. Mag. 7 Nov. 7: It was seen as an easy touch, where you could buy acres of land and draughty houses for the price of a garage in Chelsea. |
see touch v.2
1. to borrow money, esp. when the donor is less than enthusiastic.
| Checkers 46: I’d put up a song to my Uncle Giles, and try to make a little ‘touch.’. | |
| Down the Line 24: I [...] made a swift touch for the price of a couple of rides home. | |
| Enemy to Society 330: Think of me [...] givin’ kings and emperors the haughty eye when they want to make a touch. | |
| ‘Canada Kid’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 172: I ain’t de kind what goes aroun’ makin’ cheap touches offa penny-swipers like you. But I tell you I gotta have a twenny. | |
| ‘Hobo Lingo’ in AS I:12 652: Make a touch — asking for money. | |
| Tropic of Cancer (1963) 136: Van Norden generally manages to have at least fifty francs in his pocket, a circumstance which does not prevent him fom making a touch whenever he encounters a prospect. | |
| Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 106: It would be safer to leave Curley downstairs while I made the touch. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 152: make a touch To lift a purse; to beg on the street. |
2. to pickpocket.
| Autobiog. of a Thief 32: I signalled to Zack that I would make the ‘touch.’. | |
| et al. DAUL 134/2: Make a touch. 1. To succeed in the execution of a profitable crime. |
3. to make a winning bet.
| A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 14: Guess that system of mine was wrong. I must make a touch somehow. |
begging.
| Tales of the Ex-Tanks 167: I was never on the touch at any stage of the game, snow or hail. | |
| Best of Myles (1968) 292: That man makes a fiver a day on the touch and drinks every penny of it. |
to (attempt to) borrow or extort money.
| Pal Joey 77: You mean to say she did not put the touch on you. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| Und. Nights 44: Perce was skint when Peter tried to put the touch on him. | |
| Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window in Three Negro Plays (1969) I ii: I plan to put the old touch on her when she comes back. | |
| Under A Hoodoo Moon 178: Ray and Walter had cooked up some scam to put the touch on Mick Jagger. | |
| Love Is a Racket 371: You’re nothing but a street whore who got herself made up just so she could put the touch on him. | |
| Big Boat to Bye-Bye 152: ‘I work for clients whom your husband was putting the touch on’. |
1. an easy job or sinecure; thus an easily achieved robbery or similar crime.
| Me – Gangster 220: ‘Take it easy, Flop,’ Carrots grunted. ‘This is the softest touch we’ve had.’. | |
| We Who Are About to Die 192: He gets a send-in on a soft touch up north [...] an’ he chases up there to look it over. | |
| Runyon à la Carte 113: It is by no means a soft touch to be a war correspondent. | |
| Rap Sheet 135: A bank job that looked like a soft touch. | |
| Down These Mean Streets (1970) 228: Danny found a nightclub downtown that he thought would be a soft touch. | |
| Digger’s Game (1981) 50: It’s no soft touch [...] things the way they are. |
2. one who is easily beaten.
| Yes Man’s Land 196: The fans would figure me for a soft touch for him. | |
| ‘Hold ’Em, Yale!’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 155: These Harvards are by no means soft touches in a scrabble such as this. | |
| Harder They Fall (1971) 116: Bring somebody out from the East, a nice soft touch. | |
| Godfather 135: Sollozzo has you figured for the soft touch in the Family because you let McCluskey hit you without fighting back. | |
| Indep. 1 Feb. 9: They must have thought I would be a soft touch. But I’m still fit. |
3. one who can easily be solicited for money, or goods or favours; thus as v., to solicit something from someone.
| Yes Man’s Land 11: He was no soft touch for the ladies by no means! | |
| Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. | |
| ‘Time to Kill’ Crack Detective Jan. 🌐 Boy, what a soft touch this was, boy, oh boy! | |
| Scrambled Yeggs 146: That made him a soft touch when Joe Brooks – or Joey Maddern – started his little squeeze play. | |
| Snowblind (1978) 204: Charlie Kendricks was always getting robbed, suckered or soft-touched by people. | |
| Running Man in Bachman Books (1995) 552: Charlie Grady is a soft touch. | |
| Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 319: ‘He was always a walk-up start moral when it came to the old soft touch’. | |
| Soft Detective 259: But Professor Unwala was not the soft touch you thought he’d be. | |
| Indep. 23 Feb. 3: Some are a ’soft touch’, too easily hoodwinked into providing more drugs than the addict strictly needs. | |
| (con. 1973) Johnny Porno 310: Pay them once and they’ll come back for more. They know they have a soft touch, they won’t forget it. |
4. a sympathetic person, one who is easily persuaded.
| Observer Life 24 Oct. 102: I’m a bit of a soft touch where children are concerned. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
a brothel.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
the penis.
| (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk I 44: Another [would call it] her sugar-plum, her kingo, her old rowley, her touch-trap, her flap dowdle. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
| Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden 23: Enough! I cried, and wedged a lusty turd against his tapering touch-trap. |
the penis.
| (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 572: Harry Cotiral the chemist, an old toast, who had got a swinging ass’s touch-tripe (penis) fastened to his waist. |
In phrases
(Aus.) to infuriate.
| We Were the Rats 30: You give me a touch of ’em. |
(Aus.) delirium tremens.
| ‘The Hero of Redclay’ in Roderick (1972) 302: He’s boozin’ again [...] He’s got a touch of ’em. |
(orig. Irish, then US) sexual intercourse.
| in DARE. |
last minute hesitation.
| Whisper in the Gloom (1959) 187: ‘What I say, I don’t like it.’ ‘You got a touch of the seconds?’. | |
| ‘Metropolitan Police Sl.’ in Scotland Yard (1972) 327: seconds, a touch of the: used of a policeman who has been seen twice by someone he’s following; also of, say, a witness who has had second thoughts about his evidence. | |
| Lowspeak. |
see under tarbrush n.