Definitions, Translations, and Word of the Day
Definition of "gild" []
- To cover with or as if with a thin layer of gold. (verb-transitive)
- To give an often deceptively attractive or improved appearance to. (verb-transitive)
- Archaic To smear with blood. (verb-transitive)
- Gild the lily To adorn unnecessarily something already beautiful. (idiom)
- Gild the lily To make superfluous additions to what is already complete. (idiom)
American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Use "gild" in a sentence
- "Now, if I must conform my smiles to lightning, then my smiles must gild a storm too: to _gild_ with _smiles_, is a new invention of gilding."
- "II. ii.56 (444,8) gild the faces of the grooms withal,/For it must seem their guilt] Could Shakespeare possibly mean to play upon the similitude of _gild_ and _guilt_."
- "G has only the sound of g in give, get: gil ‘star’, in Gildor, Gilraen, Osgiliath, begins as in English gild."