What does paint the lily mean?

paint the lily means "adorn unnecessarily (something that is already beautiful)". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for paint the lily?

Close synonyms include gild the lily, gild the lily. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is paint the lily a common word?

paint the lily is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

paint the lily — meaning, pronunciation and 2 definitions

verb

2 sensesAn action, occurrence or state of being.

1.
adorn unnecessarily (something that is already beautiful)
Synonymsgild the lily
Broaderdecorate
2.
make unnecessary additions to what is already complete
Synonymsgild the lily
Broaderadd

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paint the lily

verb

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