English
touchy
Touchy comes from English tetchy ‘cranky, easily annoyed, difficult to handle’.
- English1500–presenttetchy‘cranky, easily annoyed, difficult to handle’
- Englishearliest quotation 1923touchy
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Lineage
- English1500–presenttetchy‘cranky, easily annoyed, difficult to handle’
- Englishearliest quotation 1923touchy
Earliest quotation: 1923, Ernest Bramah pseudonym; Ernest Brammah , (please specify the page): “I can assure you, Mr Hosier, that other people…”
Formed from touch + -y
Proto-Indo-European *dewk- ‘to draw, pull’
…
Frankish *tukkōn ‘to knock, strike, touch’
Vulgar Latin *tuccō ‘to knock, strike’
Old French tochier ‘to touch’
Middle English touchen ‘to touch’
English touch
The story
A variant of earlier tetchy (‘cranky, easily annoyed, difficult to handle’), under influence from some senses of touch (‘affect, disturb’) and simulating touch + -y.
Every English word from English tetchy
Today it means
adj Extremely sensitive or volatile; easily disturbed to the point of becoming unstable; requiring caution or tactfulness.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / English tetchy / touchy