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Gild the Lily

 

Gild The Lily


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Meaning:

Gild the Lily means to apply unnecessary ornament - to over embellish, to cover natural beauty. 


Origin:

This term has evolved as time has gone on, we have seen it take shape as words get added or removed, and new versions are made. As people remember words in the wrong order and carry a story in their memory, “To Gild, the lily” is a great example of how phrases can change as they travel throughout history.

This phrase was started in the time of Shakespeare when he used a similar phrase in King John in 1595:

“…To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet…”

Shakespeare did not quite use the phrase the way we see it today, but he might have started the saying. As time went on and the phrase changed we see it evolve in the late 1800s to people saying “paint the lily.”  Then a change happened where we mashed both phrases together and started saying the phrase we know today “Gild the lily.” We first see the phrase in print in the Newark Daily Advocate, 1895, in what seems to be a partial remembered version of Shakespeare it reads:

"One may gild the lily and paint the rose, but to convey by words only an adequate idea of the hats   and bonnets now exhibited absolutely passes human ability."


Example:

Today we still see the term Gild the lily when we are expressing that something is perfect and beautiful and does not need to be covered up. An example sentence is:

"My sister has good bone structure and lovely skin, so she doesn't need to gild the lily by wearing makeup."


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