Word.ws English Dictionary

lilly

/ˈlɪl.i/

lilly is the obsolete form of lily.

Meaning of lily

Noun

lily (plural lilies)

  1. Any of several flowers in the genus Lilium of the family Liliaceae, which includes a great many ornamental species.
    • The engagement photos were set in a leafy bower festooned with pink and white roses, anemones, lilies and delphinium, like something straight out of an enchanted garden.2025 August 27, Vanessa Friedman, “The Ralph Lauren Look of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s Engagement Photos”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC...
  2. Any of several species of herbaceous flower which may or may not resemble the genus Lilium in some way, and which are not closely related to it or each other.
  3. The flower used as a heraldic charge; also commonly used to describe the fleur-de-lis.
  4. The end of a compass needle that should point north, traditionally often ornamented with the figure of a lily or fleur-de-lis.
    • But sailing further, it veers its lily to the west.1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica
  5. (plural-normally) A royal spade in auction bridge.
  6. The thirtieth Lenormand card, representing calmness and maturity.

See all 8 meanings of lily

Proper noun capitalized: Lilly

Lilly (plural Lillys or Lillies)

  1. A female given name, variant of Lily.
    • The woman at the center of the controversy, Lilly Gaddis, referred to her friends’ husbands as “broke ass n***s” in the clip—dropping the racial slur in a slight southern drawl so naturally, many speculated she must use it in casual conversation.2024 June 11, Josh Fiallo, “‘Trad-Wife’ TikToker Axed From Job After Casually Saying N-Word”, in The Daily Beast, archived from the original on 28 Jun 2024
    Synonyms:
    Lily, Lili, Lilli, Lil, Lill, Lil', Lill', Lilie, Lillie
    1. A diminutive of the female given names Lillian and Lilian, from Latin.
    2. A diminutive of the female given names Elizabeth and Elisabeth, from Ancient Greek.
  2. A surname transferred from the given name, based on the given name
  3. A surname transferred from the place name, variant of Lilley, from the English place name Lilley.
    Synonyms:
    Lilley

Noun capitalized: Lilly

Lilly (plural Lillys or Lillies)

  1. (US, informal) A Lilly Pulitzer dress.
    • It angered Target customers who tried, and failed, to grab $40-ish “Lillys” during a sale that was meant to span several weeks and instead spanned mere hours.2015 April 22, Megan Garber, “Why Do People Hate Lilly Pulitzer?”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 14 Jul 2015

Synonyms of lilly

Forms of lilly

Noun
plurallillies
pluralLillys
pluralLillies
Proper noun
pluralLillys
pluralLillies

Phrases with lilly

Words that rhyme with lilly

22 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about lilly

What does lilly mean?
Lilly means a female given name, variant of Lily.
What is lilly the obsolete form of?
Lilly is the obsolete form of lily.
What part of speech is lilly?
Lilly can be a proper noun or a noun.
How do you pronounce lilly?
Lilly is pronounced /ˈlɪl.i/.

Words near lilly in the dictionary

  1. Lillo
  2. Lillooet
  3. Lillooets
  4. Lillos
  5. lills
  6. lilly
  7. lilly pillies
  8. lilly pilly
  9. lilly-low
  10. lilly-lows
  11. lilly-pillies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lilly (page history and authors); Lilly (page history and authors); 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-lily.ogg.

Cite this entry: “lilly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lilly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.