Literary notes about glutinous (AI summary)
In literature, "glutinous" is employed to evoke the sensory quality of stickiness or adhesiveness, whether describing physical substances or more abstract qualities. For instance, H. G. Wells uses the term metaphorically to lend a sonorous, almost tactile quality to M'ling's speech in The Island of Doctor Moreau ([1]), while Plato employs it to draw a vivid comparison in describing something that is "more glutinous than flesh, but softer than bone" ([2]). Authors also use "glutinous" in botanical contexts, as seen in The Journals of Lewis and Clark where it characterizes the adhesive layer on a berry's surface ([3]). Moreover, in a very different erotic tone, The Romance of Lust describes a bodily discharge as "glutinous and nice" ([4]), and Benito Pérez Galdós even extends the term metaphorically to depict a kind of dense, sticky mud in Doña Perfecta ([5]).
- A tapping came at the door, and I heard the glutinous accents of M'ling speaking.
— from The island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells - Hence they were more glutinous than flesh, but softer than bone.
— from Timaeus by Plato - the surface of the berry is covered with a glutinous adhesive matter, and the frut altho ripe retains it's withered corollar.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis - Her limbs relaxed, and she died away in her first discharge, which was very glutinous and nice, but only scanty in quantity.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous - fango m mud (the 'glutinous' kind, A. ).
— from Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós
