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In Search of Lost Time [volume 1] vocabulary
423 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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noli me tangere
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tags: [botany] [christianity] [medical]
► definition
Definition:From Latin (literally “do not touch me”), as said by Jesus to Mary Magdalene in the Latin Vulgate version of John 20:17. The other senses are expansions to refer to diseases whose symptoms should not be touched since handling the swellings could exacerbate the disease, and plants which discharge upon being touched.1. (medicine, uncountable, obsolete) Lupus.2. (medicine, uncountable, obsolete) Cancer of the face.3. Any plant of a genus of herbs (Impatiens) having capsules which, if touched when ripe, discharge their seeds.4. The squirting cucumber.5. (Christianity) A picture showing Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene.text from Wiktionary, licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike
painting: by Titian (1514), https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5444299
► uses
Uses:
Damn her! She's a noli me tangere in my flesh, which I cannot bear to be touched or tampered with.
Tobias Smollett. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771)
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When one comes to think of it, surely people ‘in society’ (and, though one may find fault with them now and then, still, after all they are a very different matter from that gang of blackmailers) shew a profound sagacity in refusing to know them, or even to dirty the tips of their fingers with them. What a sound intuition there is in that ‘Noli me tangere’ motto of the Faubourg Saint-Germain.”
Marcel Proust. In Search of Lost Time [volume 1]
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