'Tact' is Latin for 'touch' — from 'tangere.' Social skill as knowing exactly how to handle a situation.
Adroitness and sensitivity in dealing with others or with difficult issues; a keen sense of what to say or do to avoid giving offense.
From Latin 'tactus' (a touching, the sense of touch, a contact), noun formed from the past participle of 'tangere' (to touch, to come into contact with, to affect). The PIE root is *teh₂g- (to touch, to handle, to take hold of), which generated a rich family through Latin: 'tangere' → 'tāctus' (touch — 'tact,' 'tactile'), 'contingere' (to touch together — 'contact,' 'contagion'), 'attingere' (to touch upon — 'attain'), 'intāctus' (untouched — 'intact'), 'contingentia' (a touching together of circumstances — 'contingent,' 'contingency'), and 'contamināre' (to defile by touching — 'contaminate'). The word entered English
German 'Takt' took a different path from the same Latin source: it primarily means musical time or rhythm (as in 'Taktstock,' a conductor's baton — literally a 'beat-stick'). The musical sense comes from the idea of touch as rhythm — the regular 'touching' of the beat. English borrowed this sense too: a bar of music in a German score is a 'Takt,' and the English word 'tact' briefly carried