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tactful

adjective

Simple meaning

Possessing tact; able to deal with people in a sensitive manner.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

taktfuhl

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈtæktfəl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Possessing tact; able to deal with people in a sensitive manner.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Possessing tact; able to deal with people in a sensitive manner.

Used this way, tactful is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use tactful

  • “She was tactful enough not to shatter his illusion.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

tactful handlingtactful mannerless tactfultactful lettertactful person

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • tacticnounDerived noun · specialist

    A plan for attaining a particular goal.

  • tacticaladjectiveDerived adjective

    Related to a plan for attaining a particular goal.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

Sense: possessing tact

tactless

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.