tactfulness

C2+ Topic:People & Society

US /ˈtæktfəlnəs/ UK /ˈtæktfəlnəs/ See IPA manual

noun

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... diplomacy discretion delicacy sensitivity tact finesse poise

Opposites

tactlessness bluntness indiscretion insensitivity

Word family

Related forms tact tactful tactless

Etymology

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

# 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

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