adj. (old and still colloquial).—1. Irritable, apt to take offence, all ‘angles and corners’ [i.e., tetchy]. [JOHNSON: ‘a low word.’] Hence TOUCHINESS = sensitiveness, peevishness.
d. 1529. SKELTON, Works [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 373. The verb TOUCH gets the new sense of irritare;… hence our TOUCHY].
1605. King Leir and his Three Daughters.
| Leir. Alas, not I: poore soule, she breeds yong bones, | |
| And that is it makes her so TUTCHY sure. |
1611. COTGRAVE, Dictionarie, s.v. Chatouilleux à la poincte. Quick on the spurre … TICHY, that will not endure to be TOUCHED.
1611. FLETCHER, The Maids Tragedy, iii. Y’are TOUCHIE without all cause.
1628. EARLE, Microcosmographie, ‘A Blunt Man.’ Hee is TEACHY himself, and seldome to his own abuses replyes but with his Fists.
1648. GAUDEN, Eikon Basilike. My friends resented it as a motion not guided with such discretion as the TOUCHINESS of those times required.
1651. RANDOLPH, Hey for Honesty, Introduction. This is no age for wasps; ’tis a dangerous TOUCHY age, and will not endure the stinging.
1727. GAY, Fables, iv.
| You tell me that you apprehend | |
| My verse may TOUCHY folks offend. |
1742. RAY, North Country Words, 45. TECHEY for TOUCHY, very inclinable to Displeasure or Anger.
1831. SYDNEY SMITH, To Mrs. Meynell, Dec., in Letters [DAVIES]. You have a little infirmity—tactility, or TOUCHINESS.
1844. W. BARNES, Poems in Dorset Dialect, Glossary. TOUCHY … very irritable or sensitive, impatient of being even ‘touched.’
1885. Daily Telegraph, 14 Oct. In South Australia he is exceptionally TOUCHY, and, in particular, you must not interfere with his pipe.
2. (artists’).—Descriptive of a style in which points, broken lines, or touches are employed, as distinguished from firm unbroken line work: cf. TOUCH, verb. 2.
3. (Christ’s Hospital).—Rather: e.g., TOUCHY A LUX = rather a good thing.
