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• noli me tangere
  noli me tangere

  noun

  a person or thing that must not be touched or interfered with.
• noli-me-tangere
  noli-me-tangere

  noun

  a warning against interfering or against touching a person or thing

noli me tangere

American  

[noh-lahy mee tan-juh-ree, noh-lee, noh-lee me tahng-ge-re] / ˈnoʊ laɪ mi ˈtæn dʒə ri, ˈnoʊ li, ˈnoʊ li mɛ ˈtɑŋ gɛˌrɛ /

noun

1. a person or thing that must not be touched or interfered with.

2. a picture representing Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection.

3. Also noli-me-tangere. the touch-me-not.

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noli-me-tangere British  

/ ˈnəʊlɪˌmeɪˈtæŋɡərɪ /

noun

1. a warning against interfering or against touching a person or thing

2. a work of art depicting Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene after His Resurrection

3. another name for touch-me-not

4. a cancerous ulcer affecting soft tissue and bone

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Etymology

Origin of noli me tangere

< Latin: do not touch me (Jesus' words to Mary Magdalene)

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

noli me tangere noli-me-tangere

For now, they’re effects that we don’t understand well enough in part because of the four decades that they were the noli me tangere of research chemicals.

From Forbes ● Aug. 4, 2015

Mass industrialised society developed, in part, by inculcating us with rigid taboos - not only "noli me tangere", but also "don't talk to me, jostle me, or even acknowledge my physical presence".

From BBC ● Jan. 30, 2015

The parts of the bodies rarely connect well, and have noli me tangere written all over them.

From Time Magazine Archive

That noli me tangere pose barely masked the inner Waugh: a self-lacerating loner who for a time, Stannard asserts, was certifiably schizophrenic.

From Time Magazine Archive

For every philosophy is scholastic which considers fantastic and mythological material as a noli me tangere, and treats it in logical categories and distinctions by means of a complete set of formulæ.

From History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) by Neil Buchanan

True, she had her lovely little serene, holy, noli-me-tangere air; but I thought that would pass.

From A House-Party Don Gesualdo and A Rainy June by Ouida

A man who lives for himself alone sits on a sort of insulated glass stool, with a noli-me-tangere look at his fellow-men, and a shivering dread of some electric shock from contact with them.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 11, September, 1858 by Various

He hath, moreover, a John Bull-like air in his broad and burly shape, his smooth and unscaly superficies and the noli-me-tangere character of his dorsal fin.

From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 17, No. 097, January, 1876 by Various

I believe she would have spoken to her if she had been alone; but Miss Maitland and Fanny Dover had, both of them, a trick of putting on noli-me-tangere faces among strangers.

From A Woman-Hater by Charles Reade

Milton's attitude must be distinguished from patrician pride, or the noli-me-tangere of social exclusiveness.

From Milton by Mark Pattison