Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A familiar garden-plant of the genus Hemerocallis: so called because the beauty of its flowers rarely lasts over one day.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There were small hard apples, sweet and spicy wild carrots, peeled, gnarled roots of starchy groundnuts, pitted dried cherries, dried but still green day-lily buds, round green milk vetch dried in the pod, dried mushrooms, dried stalks of green onions, and some unidentifiable dried leaves and slices.

    The Mammoth Hunters Auel, Jean M. 1985

  • This was the "Lady Washington," and much resembled a snowy day-lily with an odor of tuberoses.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 Various

  • Ah kingly kiss – no more regret nor old deep memories to mar the bliss; where the low sedge is thick, the gold day-lily outspreads and rests beneath soft fluttering of red swan wings and the warm quivering of the red swan's breast.

    Hymen Hilda Doolittle 1921

  • (My lady was never one for wearing gloves, yet the sun seemed no more to think o 'scorching her fair hands than the leaves of a day-lily.)

    A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales Am��lie Rives 1904

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