from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- transitive v. To cover with or as if with a thin layer of gold.
- transitive v. To give an often deceptively attractive or improved appearance to.
- transitive v. Archaic To smear with blood.
- idiom gild the lily To adorn unnecessarily something already beautiful.
- idiom gild the lily To make superfluous additions to what is already complete.
- n. Variant of guild.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- v. To cover with a thin layer of gold; to cover with gold leaf.
- v. To adorn.
- v. To make appear drunk.
- n. Alternative form of guild.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- transitive v. To overlay with a thin covering of gold; to cover with a golden color; to cause to look like gold.
- transitive v. To make attractive; to adorn; to brighten.
- transitive v. To give a fair but deceptive outward appearance to; to embellish.
- transitive v. To make red with drinking.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To overlay with gold, either in leaf or powder or in amalgam with quicksilver; overspread with a thin covering of gold.
- To give the appearance of gold to, whether by means of actual gold-leaf or in some other way, as by lacquering polished brass, bronzing with gold-colored bronze-powder, or the like.
- In old chemistry, to impregnate or saturate with gold.
- Figuratively To give a golden appearance or color to; illuminate; brighten; render bright; make glowing.
- To give a fair and agreeable external appearance to; recommend to favor and reception by superficial decoration: as, to gild flattery or falsehood.
- To make drunk: in allusion to the effect of liquor in causing the face to glow.
- To sell.
- To electroplate by depositing a layer of gold from an electric bath.
- To eat the alloy out of (a low-grade gold) by means of an acid, leaving the fine gold on the surface.
- n. An association or corporation established for the promotion of common objects, or mutual aid and protection in common pursuits, and supported (originally) by the contributions of its members.
- n. A gildhall.
- n. See geld.
- n. In phytogeography, one of several groups of plants which depend for their existence on other plants.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. a formal association of people with similar interests
- v. decorate with, or as if with, gold leaf or liquid gold
Now, if I must conform my smiles to lightning, then my smiles must gild a storm too: to _gild_ with _smiles_, is a new invention of gilding.
II. ii.56 (444,8) gild the faces of the grooms withal,/For it must seem their guilt] Could Shakespeare possibly mean to play upon the similitude of _gild_ and _guilt_.
G has only the sound of g in give, get: gil ‘star’, in Gildor, Gilraen, Osgiliath, begins as in English gild.
For the protection and regulation of this trade the organization known as the gild merchant had grown up in each town.
According to what I read in a couple of dictionaries, "gild" means to decorate the outside of something, usually unnecessarily.
Before I tell you what I'm referring to when I say "my gilded cage in the Philippines", I need to tell you exactly what "gild" and the phrases "gilded cage" and "gild the lily" mean.
The world "gild" is what the word "guild" is based on, which is usually an association formed for the protection or support of its members.
Mr. Toulmin Smith tells us: "The link which has been broken and mislaid was the" English Guild "(or" gild, "as seems the more correct spelling).
Twentieth-century totalitarian art did not just gild the cage; it helped to build it.
The moment was caught in the leader's debate on Monday night when Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny did not gild the lilly and told an audience of close to one million watching that they would all have to share the pain.