lily-white
"lily-white" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lily-white” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A shade of the color white.
Corpus desk
Index EN-lily-white · lily-white · English
lily-white · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "L" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lily-white |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “lily-white” in English
Rare enough to double-check
lily-white is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for lily-white, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English liliwhite, lilye-white, lilye-whyt, equivalent to lily + white. The correct English form is lily-white, spelled L-I-L-Y---W-H-I-T-E.
Definition
- 1A shade of the color white.
- 2Pure, unblemished, immaculate.
- 3Innocent, having a reputation beyond reproach.
- 4Of the Caucasian race; white.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how lily-white appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Not a pimple nor freckle marred her lily-white skin
Four for the Gospel makers, / Three, three, the rivals, / Two, two, the lily-white boys, Clothed all in green, O
Etymology
From Middle English liliwhite, lilye-white, lilye-whyt, equivalent to lily + white.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.