Lilly or lily?
Lilly is a noun meaning “A Lilly Pulitzer dress”; lily is a noun meaning “Any of several flowers in the genus Lilium of the family Liliaceae, which…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) lily is about 2.6 times as common as Lilly.
What is the difference between Lilly and lily?
| Lilly | lily | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun, adjective |
| Meaning | USinformalA Lilly Pulitzer dress | Any of several flowers in the genus Lilium of the family Liliaceae, which includes a great many ornamental species Any of several species of herbaceous flower which may or may not resemble the genus Lilium in some way, and which are not closely related to it or each other |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Forms | lillies | lilies |
| Pronunciation | /ˈlɪl.i/ | /ˈlɪli/ |
| In writing | 3.5 times per million words | 8.9 times per million words |
Sources: Lilly and lily in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of Lilly and lily
Lilly
- 1
USinformalA Lilly Pulitzer dress
lily
- 1
Any of several flowers in the genus Lilium of the family Liliaceae, which includes a great many ornamental species
- 2
derogatoryslangWhite (as a racial epithet)
- 3
Any of several species of herbaceous flower which may or may not resemble the genus Lilium in some way, and which are not closely related to it or each other
- 4
The flower used as a heraldic charge; also commonly used to describe the fleur-de-lis
- 5
The end of a compass needle that should point north, traditionally often ornamented with the figure of a lily or fleur-de-lis
- 6
A royal spade in auction bridge
- 7
The thirtieth Lenormand card, representing calmness and maturity
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, Lilly or lily?
Lilly appears 3.5 times per million words; lily 8.9 times per million words.
Lilly 3.5 times per million wordslily 8.9 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search Lilly vs lily?
“Lilly vs lily” is searched about 480 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“lily vs Lilly”, “Lilly or lily”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.