touchy-feely

to be overly affectionate and emotional

TRANSLATION

touchy-feely = übermäßig gefühlsbetont --- GOOGLE INDEX touchy-feely: approximately 2,700,000 Google hits

STATISTICS

IN THE PRESS

Richard Dawson brought a saucy, unabashedly TOUCHY-FEELY style to TV game shows as host of Family Feud.

(The News Tribune)

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Like so many of his mistakes, David Cameron’s espousal of gay marriage sprang largely from a wish to give his party a more TOUCHY-FEELY image.

(The London Daily Mail)

Did you
know?

touchy-feely
adjective, slang (often in a derogatory sense)

- openly expressing affection or other emotions

(Oxford English Dictionary)

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Touchy-feely is used frequently in a negative sense to describe someone who is overly affectionate and emotional, sometimes to the point of making others uncomfortable. But who says only people can be touchy-feely?

The makers of the Star Wars series of films would have us believe that robots like R2D2 and 3CPO can have feelings as well. But that's Hollywood. Nevertheless, researchers at the University of Ottawa developed a robot that could be the closest thing to a human analog. Pumpkin, as it's called, looks like it was made with an oversized LEGO Mindstorm kit. But the plan is to make it look like us, with a face that can express emotions and an artificial skin that can feel just like us.

The artificial skin the scientists plan to employ is made up of elastic silicon impregnated with tactile and temperature sensors. The sensors in the skin will allow the robot to feel contact, pressure, movement, texture and temperature through its skin just like we do.

The Ottawa team also plans to add a network of tubes underneath the skin that will circulate hot water to make it more life-like. As if that's not enough, they will eventually replace its head with an anatomically correct human skull covered with the same skin and a spring-loaded jaw to replicate the motion of talking. The face will also be able to mimic facial expressions such as surprise and anger with a set of actuators beneath its skin, making it more or less a touchy-feely robot.

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SYNONYMS

emotional, expressive, feeling, sensitive

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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation

"Most customers are uncomfortable with touchy-feely people in a business relationship."

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