lily-white, a.
(Stress variable.)
Also 4 luly-.
1. a. White as a lily.
| a 1310 in Wright Lyric P. vii. 30 Lylie-whyt hue is..that reveth me mi rest. 13.. E.E. Allit. P. B. 977 Loth & þo luly-whit his lefly two deȝter. a 1400 Pistill of Susan 16 Heo was..Loueliche & lilie whit. 1513 Douglas æneis i. Prol. 453 In loifing of thir ladyis lilly quhyte. 1590 Spenser F.Q. ii. iii. 26 A silken Camus lilly whight. 1749 Fielding Tom Jones i. xi, Cherry Cheeks, small Lily-white Hands. 1818 Cobbett Pol. Reg. XXXIII. 280 As to despotism, your lily-white hands must never touch it. 1820 Scott Abbot vii, With..ten lily-white groats in his pouch. |
b. as n. (a) Lily-white colour. † (b) Old Cant. A chimney-sweep.
| a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Lilly-white, a Chimney-sweeper. 1713 Eng. Gratitude 7 See how my Flowers are..dy'd in Lilly-white or Rosy-red. |
2. a. In favour of, committed to, or pertaining to a policy of racial segregation. orig. U.S.
| 1903 N.Y. Times 23 Sept., The report that the President was seeking reconciliation with the ‘Lilywhite’ faction, which eliminated the negro from the last State Convention. 1909 Westm. Gaz. 13 Feb. 2/2 That..is what they call the lily-white policy!.. It is the unprincipled white politician who finds anti-negro agitation a popular plank in his platform. 1953 Manch. Guardian Weekly 8 Oct. 5/1 Before 1948 groups of landlords had managed to maintain ‘lily-white’ communities by signing ‘restrictive covenants’. 1968 Morning Star 10 Aug. 1/1 While the lilywhite Republican convention was nominating Richard Nixon in an atmosphere of ballyhoo and frenzied hysteria, the same city of Miami saw Negroes demonstrating for their rights. |
b. Irreproachable, lacking faults or imperfections.
| 1961 in Webster. 1970 New Yorker 9 May 33/3, I think the city should be lily-white on this, so the first thing I'm going to try to do is convert all our city vehicles to low-pollution engines. 1973 Times 18 Jan. 2/7 Robert Mark [the commissioner] is determined to have a lily-white police force. He will have a lily-white police force looking pretty in the street. |
So † lily-whited a. in same sense; hence lily-whiteness.
| 1560 T. Phaer æneid ix. (1562) Ee iij, Some lylywhyted swan. 1885–94 R. Bridges Eros & Psyche Apr. xxii, Psyche, all in lily-whiteness veil'd. |