Word.ws English Dictionary

gilds the lily

gilds the lily is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 gilds the lily

What is gilds the lily the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Gilds the lily is the third-person singular simple present indicative of gild the lily.

Words near gilds the lily in the dictionary

  1. Gildners
  2. Gildon
  3. Gildonic
  4. Gildons
  5. gilds
  6. gilds the lily
  7. gilds the pill
  8. Gile
  9. Gilead
  10. Gileadean
  11. Gileadeans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gilds 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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