Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (US) anything or anyone remarkable or particularly outstanding.

1849		Paul Pry 12 Feb. n.p.: Mr. L—y to keep his temper. He was anything but a lilly at the Bunch of Grapes, in Milk street, on Monday last.
1899		Ade Stories of the Street and of the Town (1941) 249: The head was a lily.
1903		Ade ‘Hickey Boy & the Grip’ In Babel 110: I felt like I’d been run over by an ice-wagon three or four times [...] an the head was a lily. No eyes at all. Just a couple o’ poached eggs, that’s all.
1909		N.Y. Tribune 24 Jan. 29/1: She was something of a lily in her partic’lar line.
1924		D. Hammett ‘Who Killed Bob Teal?’ Nightmare Town (2001) 269: ‘What do think of all that?’ [...] ‘She’s a lil, huh?’ He grinned.
1928		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 40: D’ye get the doll tryin’ to give him the eye? Ain’t she a lil?
1938		D. Runyon ‘The Big Umbrella’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 549: A right-hand shot that is positively a lily.
1948		D. Ballantyne Cunninghams (1986) 166: It’s Betty that can’t hold the liquor, isn’t it? She’s a real lily of a hophead.
1952		(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 66: You ain’t no lily.

(b) (US Und.) a gullible person.

1908		H. Green Maison De Shine 15: Fine for the lilies! I got her now.
1929		Hostetter & Beesley It’s a Racket 231: lily – An easy victim; exceptionally gullible person.
1935		Sun (N.Y.) 19 Feb. 28/1: The sucker has many names among the crooks. ‘Lily,’ ‘mug,’ ‘pushover,’ and ‘mooch’ are the most common.
1944		‘F. Bonnamy’ A Rope of Sand (1947) 48: The guy couldn’t take it. How’d I know he was a lily?
1952		M. Millar Vanish in an Instant (2016) 58: ‘That stinking lily [...] I ought to poke him’.
1966		P. White Solid Mandala (1976) 181: A big, porous, trembly lily, he was terrified for the fate of the dogs.

(c) (US) a virgin.

1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 264: She sure was one peach of a lily.
1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 81: You saw me first with Silk Freeman, so I guess you know I’m no lilly.

(a) (US) usu. in pl., a white person’s hands; thus lily-presser, a handshaker.

1927		‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 454: Lilies, The hands. ‘I butchered wood all day and dug the splinters out of me lilies fer a week after.’.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 145: lillies The female hands.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 807: lillies – The hands.

(b) (UK und.) a forged £5 note [legitimate £5 notes were white from 1793-1957].

1935

Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 6: Lily: Forged £5 note.

(c) (US black) a white person [SE lilywhite. Note 14C SE lily, a person or thing of exceptional whiteness, fairness or purity].

[1863		G.A. Sala Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous 157: She was a bitter woman when vexed, and called me ‘beggar buckra,’ ‘poor white trash,’ ‘tam lily thief,’ and the like].
1967		Ragni & Rado Hair 🎵 My Mother Call ’Em Lilies.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 60: The single most descriptive attribute young blacks focus on in their labeling of whites is color – or the lack of it – such as [...] lily, pale face, rabbit.

(a) a derog. term for an effeminate man or a homosexual, esp. one who fears to reveal his sex life; also used by homosexuals.

1923		G. Saintsbury Second Scrap Bk v 39: But in order once more to consider and console that lily, the Educational Expert, let us turn to ‘grind’.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 772: He [...] couldn’t get over what that lily of a poet had been springing on the dame.
1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1968		H. Sebold Adolescence 254: He found out that in their argot a ‘lily’ meant a homosexual.

(b) the queen in cards.

1935

A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Lilly, a queen (playing cards).

(c) (camp gay) a proper name used for a variety of camp nicknames.

1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 229: Other old names [for homosexual men] are Flo(rence), Lily, Fanny, Alice.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 93: Lily – a male homosexual.