The French verb “toucher” has a few different meanings. Not all of them are obvious. It can mean “to touch,” “to hit,” “to affect,” “to be next to,” “to get,” “to receive,” or “to win.”

“Le toucher” is also a masculine noun meaning “the touch” or “the sense of touch.”

to touch

• prière de ne pas toucher (please do not touch)
• toucher l’épaule de quelqu’un (to touch someone’s shoulder)

to hit

• si tu recules encore, tu vas toucher le mur (if you reverse any more, you’ll hit the wall)
• touché ! (used in the sport of fencing to acknowledge a hit, said by the fencer who is hit)

to get, receive, win

• il a touché une grosse somme à son départ (he got a lot of money when he left)
• il touche le jackpot à la loterie (he wins the jackpot in the lottery)
• ils touchent une petite retraite (they get a small pension)

Etymology

The verb “toucher” comes from the Latin verb “toccare,” which means “to strike” or “to knock.” Literally it means “to make a ‘toc.'” A “toc” is the sound made when you hit two hard objects together. So “toccare” is an onomatopeic word, because it is a word based on the sound of what it describes.

In Old French, the verb was spelled variously as “tuchet,” “tuchier,” “tochier,” “touchast,” “touchois,” “touce,” “tucher,” “toche,” “tochiee,” and “touce,” depending on the tense, person, mood and the individual example.