Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A warning or prohibition against meddling, touching, or interfering.
- n. A representation of Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalen after his resurrection.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In bot.:
- n. A plant, Impatiens Noli-me-tangere.
- n. A plant of the genus Ecballium, the wild or squirting cucumber.
- n. In medicine, a lupus or epithelioma or other eroding ulcer of the face; more especially, lupus of the nose.
- n. A picture representing Jesus appearing to St. Mary Magdalene after his resurrection, as related in John xx.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Any plant of a genus of herbs (Impatiens) having capsules which, if touched when ripe, discharge their seeds. -- See impatiens.
- n. The squirting cucumber. See under cucumber.
- n. (Med.) A name formerly applied to several varieties of ulcerous cutaneous diseases, but now restricted to
Lupus exedens , an ulcerative affection of the nose.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a cancerous ulcer of soft tissue and bone
Etymologies
- Late Latin nōlī mē tangere, do not touch me (Jesus' words to Mary Magdalene, John 20:17) : Latin nōlī, do not, imperative of nōlle, to be unwilling + Latin mē, me + Latin tangere, to touch. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Warren pictures a case of noli-me-tangere, a destructive type of epithelial carcinoma (Fig. 254).”
“Warren pictures a case of noli-me-tangere, a destructive type of epithelial carcinoma.”
“In the damp and shady places of the woods there exists a plant of the same family which, for similar reasons, bears the even more expressive name of _Impatiens noli-me-tangere_, or touch-me-not.”
“Had it no essential sacredness, no _noli-me-tangere_ quality of shining away the gambler's covetous glance, of withering his rude and venturous hand, or of poisoning, like some Nessus 'shirt, the lewd ruffian who might soon thereafter wear it?”
“There was also Mr. Wormwood, the noli-me-tangere of literary lions -- an author who sowed his conversation not with flowers but thorns.”
“Due undoubtedly to the superstitious opinions about menstruation, which came over to us from the ages-of-long-ago, menstruation is still considered a _noli-me-tangere_, and women are afraid to bathe, to douche or even to wash during the periods.”
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