touch as a stative verb (2025)

Hello everyone

According to this link:

Stative Verbs - Definition, Usage and Examples | Testbook.com

This is my question:
Why is "touch" considered as a stative verb?

When we touch something, we move our hands and feel something. So, an action takes place.
Am I right?
Please tell me your opinion.

keramus said:

Am I right?

Click to expand...

Yes, I think so. In its normal literal sense of "be in physical contact with (sometimes implying and so aware of)", the verb "touch" is not (usually?) stative.

I am using "not stative" to mean that the verb is freely used in the continuous form. I was touching his hand. I have not studied your document enough to be sure that this is what your author means by "stative" - terminology for describing English grammar is notoriously fluid.

keramus said:

Why is "touch" considered as a stative verb?

Click to expand...

It isn't - the website is wrong.

Verbs are not divided clearly between stative and dynamic/active. Depending on context, some verbs can be both stative and dynamic/active, and may be commoner in either their stative or active form.

Kaptainymp said:

I get where you're coming from. Even though "touch" involves physical action, it's still considered a stative verb because it describes a state or condition of contact rather than the action itself. Hope that helps!

Click to expand...

Not because, when. It's both, let's face it, depending on context. This is English, not mathematics.

Your book is probably thinking (can books think?) of a sentence such as "The table was almost touching the wall". That's stative, continuous, and it doesn't involve moving our hands to feel something.

Keith Bradford said:

[...]

Your book is probably thinking (can books think?) of a sentence such as "The table was almost touching the wall". That's stative, continuous, and it doesn't involve moving our hands to feel something.

Click to expand...

To be "almost touching the wall" seems pretty static / stative, although according to one of Dowty's tests, "Statives do not occur in the progressive." But the whole distinction between categories of "stative verbs" and "dynamic verbs" seems unhelpful. Verbs can be used statively or used dynamically. Some verbs lend themselves to one or the other more than other verbs.

keramus said:

Why is "touch" considered as a stative verb?

Click to expand...

Stative verbs are very difficult to teach.

The purpose of teaching them is to prevent students from using the continuous form wrongly:
- How many brothers do you have?
- I am having two brothers.

And confusion arises with

- [Waiter in restaurant] Here is your steak.
- It is my friend who is having the steak; I'm having fish."

Keith Bradford said:

"The table was almost touching the wall"

Click to expand...

I'm not sure that this is a good example (or if it is possible for "touch" to be stative.)

"The table [almost] touched the wall" is active

Maybe the author was mixing up the sense of touch with the perception we get from it, which is usually described with the verb feel. The human action of touching is always dynamic, isn't it?

This Cambridge site makes the same claim but gives no example for the verb touch. Somewhere in the middle of the page, they show this example for feel:

feel (1) seem by touch; believe (stative); (2) touch (dynamic)
Example: These peanuts feel sticky. Have you been feeling around in the bowl with your dirty hands?

Click to expand...

A rather confusing description for a learner, but yes, feel can be stative or dynamic, depending on context.