Other forms: lilies
A lily is a tall flower with big trumpet blooms and a heavy scent. White lilies, a lily in bloom, the scent of lily.
The scent is powerful enough that lilies are barred from many hospitals, and the pollen stains anything it touches, so florists often remove the anthers. Lilies are seriously poisonous to cats, which is worth knowing before sending flowers. Note that many plants called lily are not one — water lily, lily of the valley and daylily all belong to other families entirely.
1nounlilyA tall flower with big trumpet blooms and a heavy scent.
“She put a bunch of white lilies in a vase, and the whole room smelled sweet.”
lily is a flower.
Latin lilium comes from Greek leirion, and behind that probably an Egyptian or other Mediterranean source. It is one of the oldest flower names in Europe.
Ancient Greek
λείριον
Latin
līlia
Old English
lilie
Middle English
lilie
English, today
lily
From Middle English lilie, from Old English lilie, from Latin līlia, plural of līlium, from Ancient Greek λείριον. See there for more.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA