Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A plant of the genus Impatiens, especially I. Nolitangere, so called because the ripe seed-vessel explodes at the touch.
  • noun In medicine, a tubercular affection, occurring especially about the face; noli-me-tangere; lupus.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun See impatiens.
  • noun Squirting cucumber. See under cucumber.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of several unrelated plants which react when touched.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun prostrate or semi-erect subshrub of tropical America, and Australia; heavily armed with recurved thorns and having sensitive soft grey-green leaflets that fold and droop at night or when touched or cooled
  • noun North American annual plant with usually yellow or orange flowers; grows chiefly on wet rather acid soil
  • noun Mediterranean vine having oblong fruit that when ripe expels its seeds and juice violently when touched

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • There were lots of different species, as I recall, pretty typical of seepage swamp: black ash and cottonwood, buckthorn, marsh marigold, Virginia creeper, touch-me-not, wood nettle.

    FALSE MERMAID ERIN HART 2010

  • And all that juicy red lip gloss our boy was laying on your touch-me-not zones.

    Silver Zombie Carole Nelson Douglas 2010

  • She plucked a wildflower, a touch-me-not, and dropped it in a basket woven of reeds.

    Vermilion Drift William Kent Krueger 2010

  • There were lots of different species, as I recall, pretty typical of seepage swamp: black ash and cottonwood, buckthorn, marsh marigold, Virginia creeper, touch-me-not, wood nettle.

    FALSE MERMAID ERIN HART 2010

  • He smells every starling and chipmunk and fox, every lichen and fern and touch-me-not bursting up through dead leaves on his trail.

    Moving Among Them 2009

  • And I was, all stiff and touch-me-not and very pointedly avoiding the question of whether she was going to hitch a ride from me and Dodie in our little Eclipse.

    Archive 2008-10-01 Dodie Bellamy 2008

  • And I was, all stiff and touch-me-not and very pointedly avoiding the question of whether she was going to hitch a ride from me and Dodie in our little Eclipse.

    Kevin Killian: What I Saw at the Orono Conference 2008, part 9 Dodie Bellamy 2008

  • So thick are the palisades of thorny mimosa -- an aggressive weed akin to the touch-me-not -- that India's endangered one-horned rhino can no longer move about freely in Kaziranga National Park.

    Attack Of the Aliens 2007

  • But, above all, they had the modesty of pride, a chaste reserve, a/touch-me-not/which at a maturer age might have seemed intentional coyness, so much did their demeanor inspire a wish to know them.

    The Commission in Lunacy 2007

  • But, above all, they had the modesty of pride, a chaste reserve, a/touch-me-not/which at a maturer age might have seemed intentional coyness, so much did their demeanor inspire a wish to know them.

    The Commission in Lunacy 2007

Comments

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  • An earlier stage in the courtship of Miss Forget-Me-Not.

    July 18, 2008

  • common name of the plant Mimosa pudica.

    June 28, 2010