Word.ws English Dictionary

gilding the lily

gilding the lily is the present participle and gerund of gild the lily.

Meaning of gild the lily

Verb

gild the lily (third-person singular simple present gilds the lily, present participle gilding the lily, simple past and past participle gilded the lily)

  1. (idiomatic) To embellish or improve something unnecessarily.
  2. To add superfluous attributes to something.
    • Poor Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, so maligned for her imaginative pictures of Lovere and Lake Iseo, may surely be forgiven for having gilded the lily, for adding an extra touch of romance where the romantic already so abounded1908, Edith Wharton, A Motor-Flight through France, Chapter 11

Questions about gilding the lily

What is gilding the lily the present participle and gerund of?
Gilding the lily is the present participle and gerund of gild the lily.

Words near gilding the lily in the dictionary

  1. gildhall
  2. gildhalls
  3. gilding
  4. gilding metal
  5. gilding metals
  6. gilding the lily
  7. gilding the pill
  8. gildings
  9. Gildner
  10. Gildners
  11. Gildon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gilding the lily (page history and authors); gild the lily (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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