TACT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Tact

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noun

Tact n.

The sense of touch; feeling. "Did you suppose that I could not make myself sensible to tact as well as sight?" "Now, sight is a very refined tact."

(Mus.) The stroke in beating time.

Sensitive mental touch; peculiar skill or faculty; nice perception or discernment; ready power of appreciating and doing what is required by circumstances. "He had formed plans not inferior in grandeur and boldness to those of Richelieu, and had carried them into effect with a tact and wariness worthy of Mazarin." "A tact which surpassed the tact of her sex as much as the tact of her sex surpassed the tact of ours."

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Etymology of 'Tact'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tact" Quotes from Famous Books

... occurrences. These simple-minded people, who had lived so long secluded from the world, had little opportunity of hearing the unfavourable rumours of their guest's character, which were pretty generally abroad; and if now and then a suspicion was suggested to the elder lady, the tact and plausibility with which it was discovered and removed, rather tended to strengthen than weaken his position in her esteem. As for Kate, the advice and cautions of meddling friends of course only fixed her more firmly in ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... What are you saying of Monsieur Emile? Of course, he is nothing but a workman, but if everybody kept as straight as he—There is no flaw in him, but a lot of sense and tact. ...

— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg

... merely for the purpose of making a row—" before the mutual friend could stop her. The mutual friend was firm. Only by exacting strict obedience could he guarantee a successful issue. What she had got to say was, "Oh, indeed. Etcetera." The mutual friend had need of all his tact to prevent its ...

— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... theatrical repertoire of Rome is of course well known; but he wrote primarily for his own age, and in a difficult environment. Not only did he have to please a highly volatile and inflammable public, but he must have been forced to exercise tact to avoid offending the patrician powers, as the imprisonment of Naevius indicates. Mommsen has an apt summary:[55] "Under such circumstances, where art worked for daily wages and the artist instead of receiving due ...

— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke

... on the four-poster bed, photographs on his dressing-table, and flowers. All of these were buried deep underground. A puzzling detail was a perfectly good brass lock and key on his door. I asked if it were to keep out shells or burglars. And he explained that the door with the lock in tact had been blown off its hinges in a house of which no part was now standing. He had borrowed it, as he had borrowed everything else in the subterranean war-ship, from the ...

— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis

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