human touch

1. Literally, physical touch between two people. Babies need human touch—that's why skin-to-skin contact is so important. I was surprised by how much I missed human touch when I lived alone. Human touch was the only thing that got me through the funeral. I still cried the whole time, but at least my boyfriend was there, holding my hand.

2. The ability to treat other people with warmth and empathy. In my experience, it's rare to have a psychiatrist who treats her clients with a human touch and sees them as more than a diagnosis. These automated checkouts are convenient, but they lack the human touch of having a real person. I've been a receptionist for 20 years, and I've always felt that a human touch was crucial to the job.

3. Qualities unique to human beings that are present in something inanimate, such as an object or place. The phone's voice-activated software sounds like a robot—we need to give it more of a human touch. So that my doctor's office wouldn't feel sterile, I was sure to add a human touch with soothing colors and photos. It's an industrial office building and you want to give it a human touch? Good luck with that.