touch on

(redirected from touch upon)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Encyclopedia.

touch on (something)

To discuss or deal with some topic informally or in passing. We'll touch on that matter later in the meeting, so let's stay focused on the issue at hand. She touched on the problem, but she didn't get a chance to explain exactly what had happened. The movie touches on themes of loneliness and grief, but doesn't make them the central focus of the characters.

See also: on, touch

touch (up)on something

Fig. to mention something; to talk about something briefly. In tomorrow's lecture I'd like to touch on the matter of taxation. The teacher only touched upon the subject. There wasn't time to do more than that.

See also: on, touch

touch on something

Fig. to mention something; to talk about something briefly. In tomorrow's lecture I'd like to touch on the matter of taxation. The teacher only touched on the subject. There wasn't time to do more than that.

See also: on, touch

touch on

Also, touch upon.

1. Mention briefly or casually in passing, as in He barely touched on the subject of immigration. [First half of 1600s]

2. Approach closely, verge on, as in This frenzy touched on clinical insanity. [Early 1800s]

See also: on, touch

touch on

or touch upon

1. To deal with some topic in passing: The speech touched on all the important issues but never really discussed them.

2. To relate to someone or something; concern someone or something: The problem of poverty touches on every level of society.

3. To approach the nature or condition of something; come close to something: The fan's excitement touched on clinical insanity.

See also: on, touch

References in periodicals archive ?

It's planned to touch upon the subject of anti-corruption policy in Ukraine - legal regulation and Ukraine's participation in international cooperation in preventing and combating corruption.

Ukraine : The Minister of Justice is going to present the national report on the issues of the rule of law in Ukraine at the U.N. General Assembly session

The questions touch upon all central themes, including transportation, venue planning, security, accommodations and the environment.

City is going for gold

The voice, though brave in "Jenny Leigh," when savoring common ground with an untamed woman, becomes sentimental when speaking of a lover in "He Touches." But Ellis shows strength with the sonnet "Kitchen Witches" and the aubade "Space." Her decision to weave in poems that touch upon broader experiences helps the collection feel complete.

Tougaloo Blues

"The pathological extensions of love not only touch upon but overlap with normal experience," goes the neatly summarizing thesis of Enduring Love (quoted, apparently, from an actual British Journal of Psychiatry article), a statement that evokes the irritatingly schematic quality Ian McEwan's books sometimes have.

Enduring Love

Donno does not detail the translator's art as revealed in these texts, although she does touch upon certain metrical characteristics of Reynolds' translation of the Aminta, for example.

Three Renaissance Pastorals: Tasso-Guarini-Daniel

If there is any attempt to reject this path, it will touch upon China's core interests."

China rules out building naval base in Pakistan, Sri Lanka

Education would touch upon all aspects of housing: the physical plant (including electrical and thermal installations), administration and the importance of labor union relations."

The difference is that the subject matter is germane to the profession of property management, as opposed to existing courses for brokers, which deal with leasing, buying and selling property and only touch upon management within its curriculum.

Property manager licensing still a very important issue

At the heart of Every Tongue Got to Confess is acclaimed author, anthropologist and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston's compilation of Negro folktales that are sure to touch upon a host of sensibilities.

Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States. (fiction reviews)

Williams manages to defeat the "romanticism"--the libido--latent in color, even though his backgrounds "touch upon" it.

Christopher Williams

Although most of the essays touch upon the best-known cases of police abuse of blacks during the late 1990s, including the beating of Abner Louima and the vicious killing of Amadou Diallo in New York, they also deliver historic perspectives that are not often a part of our thinking when we consider police brutality.