"one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury" meaning in English

See one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proverb

Etymology: From the use of mercury compounds in the treatment of venereal diseases before the discovery of antibiotics. Head templates: {{head|en|proverb|head=}} one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury, {{en-proverb}} one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury
  1. A single sexual encounter can lead to a lifetime of disease and treatment.
    Sense id: en-one_night_with_Venus,_a_lifetime_with_Mercury-en-proverb-t-QgHkeh Categories (other): English proverbs

Download JSON data for one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury meaning in English (2.0kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the use of mercury compounds in the treatment of venereal diseases before the discovery of antibiotics.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury",
      "name": "en-proverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English proverbs",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1976, Jenifer M. Baker, Marine ecology and oil pollution, page 13",
          "text": "An eminent physiologist, in the bad old days when Salvarsan and certain other Hg compounds were the only known remedy for venereal diseases, is said to have warned his students that 'One night with Venus may mean a lifetime with Mercury'.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, Claire Cooperstein, Johanna: A Novel of the Van Gogh Family, page 112",
          "text": "Vincent had opted for the mercury treatment, while Theo, afraid of the time involved (\"One night with Venus, a lifetime with mercury')...",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, J. H. L. Playfair, Infection and immunity, page 146",
          "text": "Early treatments with metals (arsenic, bismuth, mercury) led to the cynical summary of syphilitic infection as 'one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury'.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Russell Davies, Hope and Heartbreak, page 311",
          "text": "Many Welsh people had cause to regret the fact that, for one night of bliss with Venus, they spent a lifetime of regret with Mercury.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Harold Anderson, Searching for Che, page 114",
          "text": "But he knew better than to get his hopes up. As the old saying went: one night in Venus and a lifetime of Mercury.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A single sexual encounter can lead to a lifetime of disease and treatment."
      ],
      "id": "en-one_night_with_Venus,_a_lifetime_with_Mercury-en-proverb-t-QgHkeh"
    }
  ],
  "word": "one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the use of mercury compounds in the treatment of venereal diseases before the discovery of antibiotics.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury",
      "name": "en-proverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English proverbs",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1976, Jenifer M. Baker, Marine ecology and oil pollution, page 13",
          "text": "An eminent physiologist, in the bad old days when Salvarsan and certain other Hg compounds were the only known remedy for venereal diseases, is said to have warned his students that 'One night with Venus may mean a lifetime with Mercury'.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, Claire Cooperstein, Johanna: A Novel of the Van Gogh Family, page 112",
          "text": "Vincent had opted for the mercury treatment, while Theo, afraid of the time involved (\"One night with Venus, a lifetime with mercury')...",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, J. H. L. Playfair, Infection and immunity, page 146",
          "text": "Early treatments with metals (arsenic, bismuth, mercury) led to the cynical summary of syphilitic infection as 'one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury'.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Russell Davies, Hope and Heartbreak, page 311",
          "text": "Many Welsh people had cause to regret the fact that, for one night of bliss with Venus, they spent a lifetime of regret with Mercury.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Harold Anderson, Searching for Che, page 114",
          "text": "But he knew better than to get his hopes up. As the old saying went: one night in Venus and a lifetime of Mercury.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A single sexual encounter can lead to a lifetime of disease and treatment."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "one night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-17 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-01 using wiktextract (0b52755 and 5cb0836). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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