Word.ws English Dictionary

common touch

common touch noun: the personal quality of showing understanding of and sympathy for the concerns of ordinary people; rapport with and acceptance by ordinary people, usually in a celebrity or leader.

Noun

common touch (plural common touches)

  1. (idiomatic) The personal quality of showing understanding of and sympathy for the concerns of ordinary people; rapport with and acceptance by ordinary people, usually in a celebrity or leader.
    • If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
      Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
      . . .
      Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it1895, Rudyard Kipling, If—
    • The crowd roared its approval and gave a standing ovation to the new President of Africa's most populous nation. That common touch has served Babangida well.1986 February 17, John Moody, “Nigeria Striking a Delicate Balance”, in Time, retrieved 16 Oct 2013

Examples of common touch in a sentence

  • The admiral is the first enlisted man to lead the Navy, and Navy aides are busy cultivating his image as a four-star officer with a common touch.1996 May 4, Eric Schmitt, “New Top Admiral to Push Wider Combat Role for Women”, in New York Times, retrieved 16 Oct 2013:
  • From the first moments of his papacy it has been evident that Francis is a “people person,” with a gentle common touch and a gift for pastoral outreach.2013 September 25, Jeff Jacoby, “Pope’s interview is fodder for the culture war”, in Boston Globe, retrieved 16 Oct 2013:

Forms of common touch

pluralcommon touches

Questions about common touch

What does common touch mean?
Common touch means the personal quality of showing understanding of and sympathy for the concerns of ordinary people; rapport with and acceptance by ordinary people, usually in a celebrity or leader.
How do you use common touch in a sentence?
The admiral is the first enlisted man to lead the Navy, and Navy aides are busy cultivating his image as a four-star officer with a common touch.
What part of speech is common touch?
Common touch is a noun.
What is the plural of common touch?
The plural of common touch is common touches.

Words near common touch in the dictionary

  1. common toad
  2. common toadflax
  3. common toads
  4. common torpedo
  5. common torpedoes
  6. common touch
  7. common touches
  8. common tree snake
  9. Common Turkic
  10. Common Type System
  11. common vole

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: common touch (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-common touch.ogg.

Cite this entry: “common touch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/common_touch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.