lilac

From obsolete French lilac (now lilas), from Arabic لِيلَك (līlak).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪlək/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪlək/, /ˈlaɪlæk/, /ˈlaɪlɑk/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪlæk/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -aɪlək, -aɪlæk

lilac (plural lilacs)

1. A large shrub of the genus Syringa, especially Syringa vulgaris, bearing white, pale-pink, or purple flowers.
   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “Afterglow”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 168:

     Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.

2. A flower of the lilac shrub.
   • 1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems:

     […] O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies, / But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first, / Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes, / With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, / For you and the coffins all of you O death.

3. A pale purple color, the color of some lilac flowers.

   lilac:  

4. A cat having a lilac-colored (pale brown) coat.

lilac (comparative more lilac, superlative most lilac)

1. Having a pale purple colour.
2. Of a cat or its fur: having a pale brown colour, lighter than chocolate.

• → Cornish: laylok
• → Irish: líológ
• → Manx: laylac
• → Scottish Gaelic: liagh
• → Welsh: leloc

• syringa
• bunchflower
• Appendix:Colors

• Cilla, calli, calli-

• IPA^(key): /li.lak/

lilac m (plural lilacs)

1. archaic form of lilas