lily-handed

comparative more lily-handed · superlative most lily-handed · alternative lilyhanded

1. Characterised by a delicate and pale-skinned beauty.

   Rawlings' defaulter is encumbered, most disgracefully, with the usual blonde, in this case the lily-handed cashier in a motion picture shop;

   2014, Meredith Nicholson, Blacksheep! Blacksheep!: An American Story of Mystery and Adventure, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   For the sake of these "lily-handed maidens so daintily occupied," to use the editor's words, and for their sakes alone, has he waded through so many pages of dense technicalities from Actinococcus to Wormskioldia.

   1860, James Silk Buckingham, John Sterling, Frederick Denison Maurice, The Athenaeum - Issues 1706-1731, page 293

   So when he writes : ' When Love the lily-handed fought with death', it does not mar the beauty of the line to know that lily-handed was one of Robert Greene's concoctions...

   1972, Dylan Thomas, Early Prose Writings, page 116

   Synonyms: ethereal, white-handed

2. Having hands that are white due to lack of outdoor work; Unaccustomed to physical labor.

   The fishermen looked at Malcolm, who compared to them seemed incredibly soft and lily-handed.

   2015, Jenny Colgan, Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   “Let me see your passport,” said old Bill, “I mean your hand.” He was looking for the marks of toil. Alas, sometimes for a lily-handed parson!

   1930, Andover Newton Bulletin

   'I know more than any lily-handed pill-roller from the city,' he gasped as well as he could, trying to raise himself from the pillow and failing.

   2011, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, Dynasty 10: The Tangled Thread: The Tangled Thread, →ISBN

   Synonyms: soft-handed, uncalloused

3. Fastidious and foppish.

   In fact he was a shallow-brained, lily-handed fop, and, as may be supposed, a great favorite with a certain class of ladies who mistake impertinence for wit, and fine clothes and affected manners for refinement and solid accomplishments.

   1859, T.W. Strong, Yankee-notions - Volume 8, page 26

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   He was no lily-handed gardener, no finger-tip lover,who, with an ivory-handled sécateur, snips off minute dead twigs,and selects a rosebud for his buttonhole, but went about his business with the tender ruthlessness that true gardening demands.

   1914, E.F. Benson, Arundel,

   Dad Silva had warned his classes, "Don't forget the country doctor often has to be not only physician but dentist, yes, and priest, divorce lawyer, blacksmith, chauffeur, and road engineer, and if you are too lily-handed for those trades, don't get out sight of a trolley line and a beauty parlor."

   1925, Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith

   Synonyms: dainty, dandy, anal-retentive, choosy, conscientious, dainty, exacting, fastidious