Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The touch or finish of a master.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • What a master-touch succeeded her school-girl jingle!

    Villette 2003

  • On 14 January Boni agreed to send the messages if their importance warranted it, but admitted for the first time that Victory's traffic had begun to interfere with his other transmissions (another master-touch?).

    between silk and cyanide Marks, Leo 1998

  • He played with a master-touch, and the room was filled with rushing notes and crashing harmonies.

    The Soul of the War Philip Gibbs 1919

  • Phyllis, too, must have been conscious of that restraint, for before they parted she said something about human minds being like pianos, which get out of tune for lack of the master-touch ....

    Dennison Grant: a Novel of To-day Robert J. C. Stead 1919

  • There is a master-touch when Ortrud calls softly, “Elsa”: by one stroke, an abrupt strange chord, the whole atmosphere is for the moment altered: the dreariness of the call is unforgetable.

    Richard Wagner Runciman, John F 1913

  • It was a master-touch worthy of one who was deeply learned -- from the school of foul experience -- in the secret ways that lead to a woman's favour.

    Mistress Wilding Rafael Sabatini 1912

  • But the cry of wind, always searching, questioning, travelling the world's great routes, remained ever the master-touch.

    Four Weird Tales Algernon Blackwood 1910

  • There is a master-touch when Ortrud calls softly, "Elsa": by one stroke, an abrupt strange chord, the whole atmosphere is for the moment altered: the dreariness of the call is unforgetable.

    Richard Wagner Composer of Operas John F. Runciman 1891

  • Everything he has written bears the impress of the same master-touch, -- nevertheless garrulous controversialists hold that his famous work the 'Ruva-Kalama' descended by oral tradition from mouth to mouth till it came to us in its 'improved' present condition.

    Ardath Marie Corelli 1889

  • With a master-touch, Sophocles has made the end of

    The Christmas Kalends of Provence And Some Other Provençal Festivals 1881

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