contact (English)
Where does "contact" come from?
The English noun 'contact' derives from the Latin 'contactus'[1], which is the perfect passive participle of 'contingō'[2]. This Latin verb combines the prefix 'con-' meaning 'together' with 'tangō' meaning 'to touch'[3]. The root stretches further back through Proto-Italic '*tangō' to the Proto-Indo-European root '*teh₂g-' meaning 'to touch'[4]. In English, the word has been used since the seventeenth century[1].
Open questions
- The Proto-Indo-European root '*teh₂g-' is a reconstructed form. [4]
Full etymology tree
- contact (English), 'The act of touching physically; being in close association.'
- borrowed contactus (Latin), 'touched on all sides, having been touched on all sides'
- derived contingo (Latin), 'to touch on all sides, take hold of, come into contact with'
- compound con- (Latin), 'Used in compounds to indicate a being or bringing together of several objects'
- compound tango (Latin), 'to touch, grasp'
- inherited *tangō (Proto-Italic), 'to touch'
- derived *teh₂g- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to touch'
- inherited *tangō (Proto-Italic), 'to touch'
- derived contingo (Latin), 'to touch on all sides, take hold of, come into contact with'
- borrowed contactus (Latin), 'touched on all sides, having been touched on all sides'
Ancestors
- *teh₂g- (Proto-Indo-European)
- contactus (Latin)
Descendants and derived words
- anticontact (English)
- body contact (English)
- circle contact lens (English)
- contactable (English)
- contact ball (English)
- contact binary (English)
- contact call (English)
- contact card (English)
- contact details (English)
- contact explosive (English)
- contact-free (English)
- contact geometry (English)
Sources
- contact (English) - Wiktionary
- contactus (Latin) - Wiktionary
- contingo (Latin) - Wiktionary
- tango (Latin) - Wiktionary
Updated August 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris