Word.ws English Dictionary

touching wood

touching wood is the present participle and gerund 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 touching wood

What is touching wood the present participle and gerund of?
Touching wood is the present participle and gerund of touch wood.

Words near touching wood in the dictionary

  1. touching someone's robe
  2. touching the hem of someone's garment
  3. touching the hem of someone's robe
  4. touching up
  5. touching upon
  6. touching wood
  7. touchingly
  8. touchingness
  9. touchings
  10. touchless
  11. touchlessly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: touching 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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “touching wood.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/touching_wood. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.