Word.ws English Dictionary

touches of the tar brush

touches of the tar brush is the plural of touch of the tar brush.

Meaning of touch of the tar brush

Noun

touch of the tar brush (plural touches of the tar brush)

  1. (informal) Real or suspected African or Asian distant ancestry in a person of predominantly Caucasian ancestry; mixed racial heritage (e.g. Afro-Caribbean or, to a lesser extent, South Asian in background or appearance).
    • She was quite young—not more than about twenty-five—and sort of dark and slinky-looking, if you know what I mean. Quite nice-looking in a kind of way, but rather as though she might have what my mother used to call "a touch of the tar-brush."1936, Agatha Christie, Murder in Mesopotamia, page 30

Questions about touches of the tar brush

What is touches of the tar brush the plural of?
Touches of the tar brush is the plural of touch of the tar brush.

Words near touches of the tar brush in the dictionary

  1. touches cloth
  2. touches down
  3. touches grass
  4. touches home
  5. touches in
  6. touches of the tar brush
  7. touches of the tarbrush
  8. touches off
  9. touches on
  10. touches one's forelock
  11. touches oneself

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: touches of the tar brush (page history and authors); touch of the tar brush (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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