ˈtouch-me-ˌnot, n.
[phrase used as n.]
1. Name for two different kinds of plants with seed-vessels which burst at a touch. † a. The Squirting Cucumber: see cucumber 3. Obs.
| 1597 Gerarde Herbal ii. cccxxvii. 766 Cucumis asininus. Wilde Cucumber{ddd}Called..wilde Cucumber..and Touch me not. 1611 in Cotgr. s.v. Coucombre. 1760 J. Lee Introd. Bot. App. 330 Touch me not, Momordica. |
b. The Yellow Balsam (Impatiens Noli-tangere), or other species of Impatiens, the ripe capsules of which split open with a jerk on being touched.
| 1659 Gauden Tears Ch. ***ij, Presbytery seeming like the plant called Touch me not, which flies in the face, and breaks in the fingers of those that presse it. 1760 J. Lee Introd. Bot. App. 330 Touch me not, Impatiens. 1885 W. T. Hornaday 2 Yrs. in Jungle xxv. 300 A bed of touch-me-nots took me back like a flash to the terrace flower-beds at college. 1888 Harper's Mag. Dec. 153/2 The ‘touch-me-not’ or ‘snapweed’ of the loitering school-boy, with its touchy, jumping pods, popping even at a hard look or breath. |
2. A name for the disease Lupus.
| 1860 Mayne Expos. Lex., Touch-me-not, common name for the disease Noli me tangere. |
3. a. gen. A person or thing that must not be touched; in quot., a forbidden topic.
| 1893 Daily News 8 May 5/5 Military matters..are a ‘touch-me-not’ here. |
b. attrib. or as adj.
| 1817 M. Edgeworth Harington I. v. 112 Lady de Brantefield, the touch-me-not mistress of the mansion. 1852 Thackeray Esmond iii. iv, The saucy little beauty carried her head with a toss..and assumed a touch-me-not air, which all her friends very good-humouredly bowed to. 1880 ‘Ouida’ Moths 43 Just the old-fashioned, prudish, open-air, touch-me-not Englishwoman. |
Hence ˌtouch-me-ˈnot-ish a. [-ish1], having a ‘touch-me-not’ character; whence ˌtouch-me-ˈnot-ishness (nonce-wd.). Cf. stand-off-ish.
| 1837 Dickens Pickw. viii, There was a dignity in the air, a touch-me-not-ishness in the walk, a majesty in the eye of the spinster aunt. |