Word.ws English Dictionary

touch up

UK/ˈtʌt͡ʃ ʌp/

touch up verb: to make slight corrections or adjustments to; to fill in or perfect.

Verb

touch up (third-person singular simple present touches up, present participle touching up, simple past and past participle touched up)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To make slight corrections or adjustments to; to fill in or perfect.
    • Use a small brush to touch up the paint anywhere it is uneven.
    • The undoubted facts that survived a comparison were few and meagre, for in each case a conscientious journalist had touched up a few vague or doubtful details according to his own ideas of probability.1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados
  2. (UK, idiomatic, transitive) To fondle or to grope someone, usually in an inappropriate way.
    • The creep was trying to touch up my girlfriend.
    • I think you remember him! He made me go into the back of his shop and he touched me up, do you remember? And afterwards we shared out the money from the Cinzano. In the end he got round to doing something disgusting, that guy, something disgusting, quite disgusting.2019, Copi, “Eva Perón”, in Four Plays, Alma Books, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    caress, feel up, pet

Synonyms of touch up

Forms of touch up

third-person singular presenttouches up
present participletouching up
past participletouched up
pasttouched up

Questions about touch up

What does touch up mean?
Touch up means to make slight corrections or adjustments to; to fill in or perfect.
What part of speech is touch up?
Touch up is a verb.
How do you pronounce touch up?
Touch up is pronounced /ˈtʌt͡ʃ ʌp/ (UK).
What is the past tense of touch up?
The past tense of touch up is touched up.

Words near touch up in the dictionary

  1. touch the hem of someone's robe
  2. touch tour
  3. touch tours
  4. touch typewriting
  5. touch typing
  6. touch up
  7. touch upon
  8. touch wood
  9. touch'd
  10. touch-and-go
  11. touch-and-go landing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: touch up (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.

Last updated:

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

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