Word.ws English Dictionary

touches wood

touches wood is the third-person singular simple present indicative of touch wood.

Meaning of touch wood

Verb

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

  1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK) To make contact with wood to avert bad luck, in accordance with a folk practice.
    • Touching wood possibly has reference to (a) the cross, or (b) the altar rails in days when criminals could take sanctuary in churches.1930, John D. Stephenson, chapter I, in The Structure of English from Sentence to Essay, page 105
    Synonyms:
    knock on wood

See all 2 meanings of touch wood

Questions about touches wood

What is touches wood the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Touches wood is the third-person singular simple present indicative of touch wood.

Words near touches wood in the dictionary

  1. touches someone's robe
  2. touches the hem of someone's garment
  3. touches the hem of someone's robe
  4. touches up
  5. touches upon
  6. touches wood
  7. touches-in-goal
  8. touchest
  9. Touchet
  10. toucheth
  11. Touchets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: touches wood (page history and authors); touch wood (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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