noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
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"By the use of tact, she was able to calm her jealous husband."
"Did you suppose that I could not make myself sensible to tact as well as sight?"
"Wanda "Hey, can you show us?" Karen "No" Brent "We promise not to make fun of you." Karen "No" Lacey "Okay, we promise TO make fun of you." Karen "I'm getting a drink" Lacey "I was trying a different tact." Wanda "Bad tack.""
"Skinner (1957) saw such tacts as responses that are reinforced socially."
"You don't always have to say what's on your mind; sometimes tact trumps candor."
Sensitive mental touch; special skill or faculty; keen perception or discernment; ready power of appreciating and doing what is required by circumstances; the ability to say the right thing and avoid statements that will give offence or pain even if true.
Common synonyms include: tactfulness, ability, accommodatingness, acumen, acuteness, address.
You don't always have to say what's on your mind; sometimes tact trumps candor.
Pronounced /tækt/.
Borrowed from French tact, following a semantic shift from earlier tact (“sense of touch; feeling”), borrowed from Latin tāctus (“touched”). The borrowing was likely influenced by earlier English tact (“sense of touch; feeling”), which was a parallel borrowing directly from the Latin.
Directly borrowed from Latin tāctus.