Lily
nounA plant grown from a bulb that produces large, often trumpet-shaped, fragrant flowers.
How to spell lily
4 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce lily
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does lily mean?
- nounA plant grown from a bulb that produces large, often trumpet-shaped, fragrant flowers.
Lily in a sentence
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A single white lily stood in the vase on the table.
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She planted a row of lily bulbs along the back fence.
Where does lily come from?
Language of origin: Latin
The word comes from the Latin lilium, the name the Romans gave to the white flower, which itself probably came from the Greek leirion meaning the same bloom. The plant has been admired since antiquity for its tall stem and trumpet-shaped flowers, and its name travelled with it across the Mediterranean and into northern Europe. Old English took the Latin word in directly, where it appeared as lilie, long before the Norman Conquest. Over the centuries the spelling settled into its modern shape, with the soft double L and the closing -y that catch out anyone tempted to write a single L or to end it in -ey. The same Latin root survives in botanical names today, and the flower has carried symbolic weight, from purity in art to the heraldic fleur-de-lis of France.
How the word is built
- lil- (from Latin lilium: lily)
- -y (anglicised noun ending)
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