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Touch up   /tətʃ əp/   Listen
noun
touch up  n.  To make minor improvements in, especially in the appearance.



verb
Touch  v. t.  (past & past part. touched; pres. part. touching)  
1.
To come in contact with; to hit or strike lightly against; to extend the hand, foot, or the like, so as to reach or rest on. "Him thus intent Ithuriel with his spear Touched lightly."
2.
To perceive by the sense of feeling. "Nothing but body can be touched or touch."
3.
To come to; to reach; to attain to. "The god, vindictive, doomed them never more- Ah, men unblessed! to touch their natal shore."
4.
To try; to prove, as with a touchstone. (Obs.) "Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed."
5.
To relate to; to concern; to affect. "The quarrel toucheth none but us alone."
6.
To handle, speak of, or deal with; to treat of. "Storial thing that toucheth gentilesse."
7.
To meddle or interfere with; as, I have not touched the books.
8.
To affect the senses or the sensibility of; to move; to melt; to soften; especially, to cause feelings of pity, compassion, sympathy, or gratitude in. "What of sweet before Hath touched my sense, flat seems to this and harsh." "The tender sire was touched with what he said."
9.
To mark or delineate with touches; to add a slight stroke to with the pencil or brush. "The lines, though touched but faintly, are drawn right."
10.
To infect; to affect slightly.
11.
To make an impression on; to have effect upon. "Its face... so hard that a file will not touch it."
12.
To strike; to manipulate; to play on; as, to touch an instrument of music. "(They) touched their golden harps."
13.
To perform, as a tune; to play. "A person is the royal retinue touched a light and lively air on the flageolet."
14.
To influence by impulse; to impel forcibly. " No decree of mine,... (to) touch with lightest moment of impulse his free will,"
15.
To harm, afflict, or distress. "Let us make a covenant with thee, that thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee."
16.
To affect with insanity, especially in a slight degree; to make partially insane; rarely used except in the past participle. "She feared his head was a little touched."
17.
(Geom.) To be tangent to. See Tangent, a.
18.
To lay a hand upon for curing disease.
19.
To compare with; to be equal to; usually with a negative; as, he held that for good cheer nothing could touch an open fire. (Colloq.)
20.
To induce to give or lend; to borrow from; as, to touch one for a loan; hence, to steal from. (Slang)
To touch a sail (Naut.), to bring it so close to the wind that its weather leech shakes.
To touch the wind (Naut.), to keep the ship as near the wind as possible.
To touch up, to repair; to improve by touches or emendation.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Touch up" Quotes from Famous Books



... road. This is a censurable practice, as the flesh, where it is thumped, will bear a red mark after the animal has been slaughtered,—the mark receiving the appropriate name of blood-burn—and the flesh thus affected will not take on salt, and is apt to putrefy. A touch up on the shank, or any tendonous part, when correction is necessary, is all that is required; but the voice, in most cases, will answer as well. The flesh of overdriven cattle, when slaughtered, never becomes properly ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... no great things, so we examined them carefully, and there could be no doubt about it, they were merely common English sparrows painted. When he came in and was waiting for me sometimes (for he used to watch when I was out on purpose), he used to give them a touch up, and tell me that he had been washing them and restoring their plumage, and in that way he kept up the deception so long. An old gentleman, a friend of mine, who used to be fond of poking about and looking into old curiosity shops, happened to call, and I showed him the parrot which Charles Iffley ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... we might touch up those cross-roads to-night," he says, laying the point of his dividers upon a spot situated some hundreds of yards in rear of ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... length and added it to the first, and then another and a last, fine as a wheat straw. "These last jints I'm adding," he explained to Mary, "are so that if I have me cane whin I'm riding I can stritch it out and touch up me horses with it. And betimes, if I should iver break me old cane fish pole, I could take this down to the river, and there, the books call it 'whipping the water.' See! Cane, be Jasus! It's the Jim-dandiest little fishing rod anybody ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... refused by these same artists was to clean and touch up an old picture that had been bought for a few shillings at a sale. The old chap who had purchased it went so far as to offer them a shilling to do the work, and that offer being declined, he threw in a pint of stout as ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... shriek Pansy flew across the day nursery to the bedroom where nurse was dressing baby Charley, while Bob, all ready, was giving the last touch up to his ...
— The Thirteen Little Black Pigs - and Other Stories • Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth

... also the general question, whether, either upon a priori probability, or inferences derived from particular passages, we are bound to suppose that the two authors wrote scene by scene. Shakspeare might surely be allowed to touch up scenes, of which the mass might be ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various

... said Tonsard to his daughter. "If your father really had an otter, he would show it to us," he added, speaking to his wife and trying to touch up Fourchon. ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... insurmountable; and we are at once struck with two remarkable features of the synoptics' portrayal of Him. (1) The writers make no attempt to produce a work of art. They never dream that they are drawing a model for all men to copy. There is no effort to touch up or tone down the portrait. They simply reflect what they see without admixture of colours of their own. Hence the paradox of His personality—the intense humanness and yet the mystery of godliness ever and anon shining through the commonest incidents of His life. ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... it. The worst of it at present is, that I have a terrible thirst on me, and nothing but water have they given me, a thing that I have not drunk for years. They have tied up the arteries, and they are going presently to touch up the loose ends with hot pitch to stop the bleeding altogether. It is not a pleasant job; they have done it to three or four of the men already. One of them stood it well, but the others cried a thousand murders. O'Flaherty has promised me a drink of whisky ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty



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