tactfulness C2+ Topic:People & Society US /ˈtæktfəlnəs/ UK /ˈtæktfəlnəs/ See IPA manual Meanings 1 noun skill in handling delicate situations without giving offense She broke the news with great tactfulness. Thesaurus Synonyms 1 noun · skill in handling delicate... diplomacydiscretiondelicacysensitivitytactfinessepoise ↔ Opposites tactlessnessbluntnessindiscretioninsensitivity Word family Related forms tacttactfultactless Etymology AI details From tactful (tact + -ful) + -ness. Tact is from Latin tactus ('a touch, sense of touch'), from tangere ('to touch'). tactus Latin tangere Latin View etymology graph -> Topics People & Society Word Formation & Derivatives External links Cambridge Dictionary Wiktionary Google Images # tactfulness **Type:** Word **Level:** C2+ **Part of speech:** noun **IPA (US):** /ˈtæktfəlnəs/ **IPA (UK):** /ˈtæktfəlnəs/ ## Meanings 1. skill in handling delicate situations without giving offense ## Examples - She broke the news with great tactfulness. ## Synonyms - diplomacy - discretion - delicacy - sensitivity - tact - finesse - poise ## Antonyms - tactlessness - bluntness - indiscretion - insensitivity ## Related Forms - tact - tactful - tactless ## Roots and Affixes - Root: tactus - Root: tangere ## Etymology From tactful (tact + -ful) + -ness. Tact is from Latin tactus ('a touch, sense of touch'), from tangere ('to touch'). ## AI Etymology Tactfulness comes from tactful (tact + -ful) + -ness. Tact is from Latin tactus ('a touch, sense of touch'), from tangere ('to touch'). The historical chain includes Latin tactus and Latin tangere. The quoted older senses, "a touch, sense of touch" and "to touch", supply the semantic anchors for tactfulness. The formation is best read as suffixal and borrowed: the word tactfulness carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "skill in handling delicate situations without giving offense". Related English forms include tact, tactful, and tactless. The result is a noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization. ## Topics - People & Society - Word Formation & Derivatives markdown