Megérintették

Megérintették is the Hungarian third-person plural simple past tense form of the verb megérinteni, which literally means “to touch” but is often used metaphorically to signify influence, impact or contact with ideas, people, or events. The verb megérinteni derives from the root érint, related to erő, “to feel,” combined with the prefix meg‑, which gives the verb a transitive, completed sense. Megérintették is therefore commonly translated as “they touched” or “they affected” in English.

In everyday speech the term is most frequently employed to describe the way a person, a political decision or a cultural trend has influenced others. For example: „A mozgalom megérintették a fiatal civil szolgálatot” (The movement touched the young volunteers). It appears in journalistic reporting and literary prose to convey indirect or subtle influence: „A feltételek megérintették a társadalmi igazságosság kezdetét” (The conditions affected the onset of social justice).

In Hungarian cinema and literature its use often highlights the emotional resonance of a character’s actions. The title of a 1983 drama novel, *Megérintették*, exemplifies this tendency, referring to the protagonist’s inadvertent influence on the lives of those around him.

The form is historically linked to similar Hungarian constructions such as megérintettek (noun, “the touched”) and relates to the regular past tense paradigm in Hungarian, where the suffix‑tt occurred with stem‑stem consonants, frequently assimilated to the preceding vowel: megérint- + ették. The word is also a source of idiomatic expressions, e.g., “megérintették a szívet” (it touched their hearts).

The usage of megérintették therefore reflects the Hungarian linguistic tendency to blend physical contact with metaphorical influence, a theme that recurs across the language’s verbal morphology and cultural expressions.