foretouch

From Middle English *foretouchen, fortouchen, equivalent to fore- +‎ touch.

foretouch (third-person singular simple present foretouches, present participle foretouching, simple past and past participle foretouched)

1. (transitive) To touch beforehand; touch upon in advance.

foretouch (plural foretouches)

1. (literal, figurative) A touch made in advance; (by extension) a prelude or foreshadow.
   • 1863, Wiseman Review, volume 52, page 416:

     Is it progress at all, or is it retrogression, is it light or darkness, is it civilization or a foretouch of the disrupting force of intellectual anarchy and moral decay?

   • 1881, Adeline Dutton Train Whitney, Odd, Or Even?, page 196:

     It was as if something of the Beyond unrolled itself in exquisite promise and foretouch; as if great gates were open, through which one day - into which this day was transfiguring - they might sail in to an eternal blessedness.

   • 1905, Good Words, page 904:

     There was a foretouch of death in the thought.

   • 1914, John Oxenham, Antigonos, page 281:

     A foretouch of future shadows fell on them when they heard of Noel and Gregor MacLean having joined the London Scottish.

   • 1916, Theodore Dreiser, A Hoosier Holiday, page 57:

     In the middle distance a tall white skyscraper stood up, a prelude, or a foretouch to a great yellowish black cloud behind it.

   • 1962, John Strachey, The Strangled Cry, page 34:

     I felt its foretouch.