Did you know?
Haptic felt its way into English in the 19th century as a back-formation of haptics, a noun which was borrowed from the New Latin hapticē (meaning "science of touch," and derived ultimately from the Greek haptesthai, meaning "to touch") in the 1700s. Haptic was originally a medical synonym for tactile. By the 20th century, it had developed a psychological sense, describing individuals whose perception supposedly depended primarily on touch rather than sight. Although almost no one today divides humans into haptic and visual personalities, English retains the broadened psychological sense of haptic as well as the older "tactile" sense.
Examples of haptic in a Sentence
Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 29 Aug. 2025
Capacitive control buttons on the stems incorporate haptic feedback for more natural-feeling interaction.
—PC Magazine, 29 Aug. 2025
Imagine 750-horsepower wind machines kicking up debris and haptic signals vibrating the seats as the iconic twister lifts Dorothy’s house and deposits it next to the yellow-brick road.
—Dade Hayes, Deadline, 27 Aug. 2025
For example, an earlier assessment of lane departure warning systems, which issue alerts when the vehicle appears to be drifting out of the travel lane, found that shifting from audible warnings to haptic alerts, like steering wheel vibrations, may be less annoying to drivers.
—Tanya Mohn, Forbes.com, 26 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for haptic
Cite this Entry
“Haptic.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/haptic. Accessed 9 Sep. 2025.
Copy Citation
Share