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Business English vocabulary · Office Idioms and Phrases

Touch base

Meaning in business english, with examples

/ˌtʌtʃ ˈbeɪs/idiomCore term

In business english, touch base means: To contact someone briefly to check how things are going or to share a quick update, usually by phone, chat or a short meeting.

In Turkish: kısaca görüşmek, haberleşmek, durumu konuşmak

How it is used

Informal but widely used in offices, especially in US-influenced companies: 'Let's touch base next week', 'I wanted to touch base about the launch.' It comes from baseball, where a runner has to touch each base.

Example sentences

  1. Let's touch base on Friday to see where we are with the proposal.

  2. I just wanted to touch base about next week's visit.

Common collocations

  • touch base with someone
  • touch base about something
  • touch base next week
  • a quick touch base
  • circle backTo return to a topic or person later, usually because there is not enough time or information to deal with it now.
  • syncA short, informal meeting or call to share updates and make sure people working on the same thing are coordinated. Also used as a verb.
  • follow upTo contact someone again about something you discussed earlier, in order to check progress, ask for an answer or add information.
  • hop on a callTo start or join a quick, informal phone or video call, usually to sort something out faster than by email.

More terms: Office Idioms and Phrases

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