English

Proper noun

Lucy

1. A female given name.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene: V:iv:9:

     Then did my younger brother Amidas / Love that same other Damzell, Lucy bright,/ To whom but little dowre allotted was;/ Her vertue was the dowre, that did delight.

   • 1798 William Wordsworth: She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways:

     She lived unknown, and few would know / When Lucy ceased to be;/ But she is in her grave, and, oh,/ The difference to me!

   • 1830 Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village: Fourth Series: Cottage Names:

     But certainly there are some names which seem to belong to particular classes of character, to form the mind and even influence the destiny: Louisa, now; - is not your Louisa necessarily a die-away damsel, who reads novels, and holds her head on one side, languishing and given to love! Is not Lucy a pretty soubrette, a wearer of cast gowns and cast smiles, smart and coquettish!

   • 2009 Dora Raymond, Aunt Dora's Legacy, AuthorHouse, ISBN 1438980663, page 19 ( Lucy Who ):

     Now we'll just use a fiction name / Lucy that sounds nice / A name we can remember / Without repeating twice / / My name is so old fashioned / And they are very few / But some will have a puzzled look / And whisper Lucy who?

2. A surname​ derived from place names in Normandy based on a male personal name, from Latin Lucius.
   • 1593, William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part 1: Act IV, Scene IV:

     Here is Sir William Lucy, who with me / Set from our o'ermatch'd forces forth for aid.

3. The partial skeleton of a female Australopithecus afarensis, an early ancestor of human beings.
4. (slang) The drug LSD.
   • Dick Cavett

     The last time I made moocah, or dug sweet Lucy, was with Janis Joplin, who gave me one that must have been rolled by Montezuma himself. I saw my thoughts in clear letters, and they both felt and looked like a double strike on a coin […]

   • 1984, Lynne Reid Banks, The Warning Bell (page 302)

     Tanya shook her head slowly. 'We married to fill out the missing bits of ourselves. That doesn't have to be a bad reason. But you see, I'd been "in it". The contrast between that infernal blaze of feeling and keep-the-home-fires burning was just too much. It's why one mustn't start taking Lucy.' Lucy was the current slang for LSD.

Derived terms

• Miss Lucy

Related terms

• variants: Lucia, Luci, Lucile, Lucille
• male given names: Lucius, Lucian

Translations

English

Noun

lucy ‎(plural lucies)

1. (archaic) the pike (a kind of fish).
   • 1895, The Gentleman's Magazine, January to June issue, pg. 38:

     That a lucy or luce is the mature pike, every piscatorial schoolboy knows.