English

Alternative forms

• lilyhanded

Adjective

lily-handed ‎(comparative more lily-handed, superlative most lily-handed)

1. Characterised by a delicate and pale-skinned beauty.
   • 1860, James Silk Buckingham, ‎John Sterling, & ‎Frederick Denison Maurice, The Athenaeum - Issues 1706-1731, page 293:

     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.

   • 1972, Dylan Thomas, Early Prose Writings, page 116:

     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...

   • 2014, Meredith Nicholson, Blacksheep! Blacksheep!: An American Story of Mystery and Adventure, ISBN 1609778499:

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

2. Having hands that are white due to lack of outdoor work; Unaccustomed to physical labor.
   • 1930, Andover Newton Bulletin:

     “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!

   • 2011, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, Dynasty 10: The Tangled Thread: The Tangled Thread, ISBN 074813297X:

     '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.

   • 2015, Jenny Colgan, Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery, ISBN 0751553921:

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

3. Fastidious and foppish.
   • 1859, T.W. Strong, Yankee-notions - Volume 8, page 26:

     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.

   • 1914, E.F. Benson, Arundel,:

     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.

   • 1925, Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith:

     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."