1.  touching(n = noun.event) touch - the event of something coming in contact with the body; "he longed for the touch of her hand"; "the cooling touch of the night air"
is a kind of contact, impinging, striking
has particulars: brush, light touch, stroke
Derived form verb touch₂

2.  touching(n = noun.act) touch - the act of putting two things together with no space between them; "at his touch the room filled with lights"
is a kind of act, deed, human action, human activity
has particulars: contact, physical contact, dab, pat, tap, hit, hitting, striking, dig, jab, kiss, buss, kiss, osculation, catch, grab, snap, snatch, handling, manipulation, fingering, grope, palpation, tactual exploration, tickle, tickling, titillation, stroke, stroking, tag, lap, lick, grazing, shaving, skimming
Derived form verb touch₁

   touching(s = adj.all) affecting, poignant - arousing affect; "the homecoming of the released hostages was an affecting scene"; "poignant grief cannot endure forever"; "his gratitude was simple and touching"

   Affecting; moving; pathetic; as, a touching tale. [1913 Webster]

   Concerning; with respect to. [1913 Webster]
"Now, as touching things offered unto idols." [1913 Webster]

   The sense or act of feeling; touch. [1913 Webster]

touching, adj. & prep.
--adj. moving; pathetic (a touching incident; touching confidence).
--prep. literary concerning; about.

Derivative:
touchingly adv. touchingness n.

Etymology:
ME f. TOUCH: (prep.) f. OF touchant pres. part. (as TOUCH)

N  painfulness, trouble, care, trial, affliction, infliction, blow, stroke, burden, load, curse, bitter pill, bitter draught, waters of bitterness, annoyance, grievance, nuisance, vexation, mortification, sickener, bore, bother, pother, hot water, sea of troubles, hornet's nest, plague, pest, cancer, ulcer, sting, thorn, canker, scorpion, dagger, scourge, carking care, canker worm of care, mishap, misfortune, desagrement, esclandre, rub, source of irritation, source of annoyance, wound, open sore, sore subject, skeleton in the closet, thorn in the flesh, thorn in one's side, where the shoe pinches, gall and wormwood, sorry sight, heavy news, provocation, affront, head and front of one's offending, infestation, molestation, malignity, causing pain, hurting, hurtful, painful, dolorific, dolorous, unpleasant, unpleasing, displeasing, disagreeable, unpalatable, bitter, distasteful, uninviting, unwelcome, undesirable, undesired, obnoxious, unacceptable, unpopular, thankless, unsatisfactory, untoward, unlucky, uncomfortable, distressing, afflicting, afflictive, joyless, cheerless, comfortless, dismal, disheartening, depressing, depressive, dreary, melancholy, grievous, piteous, woeful, rueful, mournful, deplorable, pitiable, lamentable, sad, affecting, touching, pathetic, irritating, provoking, stinging, annoying, aggravating, mortifying, galling, unaccommodating, invidious, vexatious, troublesome, tiresome, irksome, wearisome, plaguing, plaguy, awkward, importunate, teasing, pestering, bothering, harassing, worrying, tormenting, carking, intolerable, insufferable, insupportable, unbearable, unendurable, past bearing, not to be borne, not to be endured, more than flesh and blood can bear, enough to drive one mad, enough to provoke a saint, enough to make a parson swear, enough to gag a maggot, shocking, terrific, grim, appalling, crushing, dreadful, fearful, frightful, thrilling, tremendous, dire, heart-breaking, heart-rending, heart-wounding, heart-corroding, heart-sickening, harrowing, rending, odious, hateful, execrable, repulsive, repellent, abhorrent, horrid, horrible, horrific, horrifying, offensive, nauseous, nauseating, disgusting, sickening, revolting, nasty, loathsome, loathful, fulsome, vile, hideous, sharp, acute, sore, severe, grave, hard, harsh, cruel, biting, caustic, cutting, corroding, consuming, racking, excruciating, searching, grinding, grating, agonizing, envenomed, catheretic, pyrotic, ruinous, disastrous, calamitous, tragical, desolating, withering, burdensome, onerous, oppressive, cumbrous, cumbersome, painfully, with pain, deuced, Int, hinc illae lachrymae!, surgit amari aliquid, the place being too hot to hold one, the iron entering into the soul, he jests at scars that never felt a wound, I must be cruel only to be kind, what deep wounds ever closed without a scar?.

N  contiguity, contact, proximity, apposition, abuttal, juxtaposition, abutment, osculation, meeting, appulse, rencontre, rencounter, syzygy, coincidence, coexistence, adhesion, touching, (touch), borderland, frontier, tangent, abutter, contiguous, touching, in contact, conterminous, end to end, osculatory, pertingent, tangential, hand to hand, close to, with no interval, contiguity, contact, proximity, apposition, abuttal, juxtaposition, abutment, osculation, meeting, appulse, rencontre, rencounter, syzygy, coincidence, coexistence, adhesion, touching, (touch), borderland, frontier, tangent, abutter, contiguous, touching, in contact, conterminous, end to end, osculatory, pertingent, tangential, hand to hand, close to, with no interval.