Gild the lily


What's the meaning of the phrase 'Gild the lily'?

To apply unnecessary ornament – to over embellish.

What's the origin of the phrase 'Gild the lily'?

Shakespeare didn’t quite coin the term ‘gild the lily’, but he came very close to doing so in King John, 1595:

SALISBURY:
Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

The context of that speech in the play is King John’s satisfaction with his second coronation – “Here once again we sit, once again crown’d”. His courtiers aren’t so sure, calling the crowning ‘superfluous’. The use of Shakespeare’s text to denote unnecessary ornamentation is fairly straightforward. After all, ‘to gild’ is to cover with a thin layer of gold, so ‘gilding refined gold’ is obviously unnecessary. Unfortunately, remembering text from Shakespeare isn’t everyone’s forte and the quotation has become rather garbled. As the quotation above shows, ‘gild the lily’ doesn’t appear in the original.

The term ‘paint the lily’ was used in the 20th century, with the same meaning we now apply to ‘gild the lily’. Clearly, this is the correct quotation. The two versions coexisted for a time, although ‘paint the lily’ is now hardly ever used. The first citation I can find for ‘gild the lily’ comes from the USA, in the Newark Daily Advocate, 1895, in what appears to be a half-remembered version of Shakespeare:

“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.”

See other phrases that were coined in the USA.

Trend of gild the lily in printed material over time

Gary Martin is a writer and researcher on the origins of phrases and the creator of the Phrase Finder website. Over the past 26 years more than 700 million of his pages have been downloaded by readers. He is one of the most popular and trusted sources of information on phrases and idioms.

Gary Martin

Writer and researcher on the origins of phrases and the creator of the Phrase Finder website. Over the past 26 years more than 700 million of his pages have been downloaded by readers. He is one of the most popular and trusted sources of information on phrases and idioms.
Gild the lily

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