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Beautiful Gild Lily Shakespeare Makeup Gilding Spoil Adding

Idiom Gild the Lily
Example She really doesn't need all that makeup. That's like gilding the lily.
Meaning to spoil something that is already beautiful by adding something extra or not needed
Origin William Shakespeare used a similar expression in his play King John: "to gild refined gold, to paint the lily...is wasteful and ridiculous excess." Over the years the saying got shortened to just "gild the lily." "Gild" means to cover with a thin layer of gold. Why did Shakespeare use "lily"? Because it is already a beautiful flower, and covering it with gold to make it more beautiful would be unnecessary.

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