tact
/tækt/noun, verb
tact is spelled T-A-C-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.2 times per million words in written English, the 26,092nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, tact means “Sensitive mental touch; special skill or faculty; keen perception or discernment; ready power of appreciating and doing what is required by…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of tact is tacts.
How many letters and syllables are in tact?
| Letters | 4: T-A-C-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.2 times per million words; the 26,092nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is tact?
Tact appears 1.2 times per million words in written English, the 26,092nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce tact?
- /tækt/
Tact has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-tact.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Mélange_a_trois-tact.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of tact
- tacts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- tacting participle, present
- tacted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does tact mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Sensitive mental touch; special skill or faculty; keen perception or discernment; ready power of appreciating and doing what is required by circumstances; the ability to say the right thing and avoid statements that will give offence or pain even if true.
By the use of tact, she was able to calm her jealous husband.
- 2
Propriety; manners (etiquette).
- 3
The sense of touch; feeling.
- 4
The stroke in beating time.
- 5
A verbal operant which is controlled by a nonverbal stimulus (such as an object, event, or property of an object) and is maintained by nonspecific social reinforcement (praise).
- 6
slangClipping of tactic.
verb
- 1
To use a tact (a kind of verbal operant).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Tact in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense sensitive mental touch:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | tact |
| German | Takt, Taktgefühl |
| Portuguese | tato |
| Spanish | tacto, tiento, mano izquierda |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does tact come from?
Borrowed from French tact, following a semantic shift from earlier tact (“sense of touch; feeling”), borrowed from Latin tāctus (“touched”). The borrowing was likely influenced by earlier English tact (“sense of touch; feeling”), which was a parallel borrowing directly from the Latin.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).