Popular musical instrument, extremely tactile, but untouched? (9)
I believe the answer is:
inviolate
'untouched?' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'popular musical instrument extremely tactile' is the wordplay.
'popular' becomes 'in' ('in' can mean trendy).
'musical instrument' becomes 'viola' (viola is a kind of musical instrument).
'extremely' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (only the extremes of the word are used).
'tactile' with its centre removed is 'te'.
'in'+'viola'+'te'='INVIOLATE'
'but' is the link.
(Other definitions for inviolate that I've seen before include "kept free from damage" , "Entire" , "Undamaged" , "not to be touched" , "Free from injury" .)