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lilac
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
lilac
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A deceitful day that makes one think of lilacs and daffodils, before blasting you with another cannonade of winter.
▪ Crocuses came and went, the apple trees exploded, lilacs drenched the air, summer came with its visitors and boarders.
▪ Gold chrysanthemums spilled from ceramic pots; lilacs and cherry blossoms flicked clusters of light into our garden.
▪ Great creamy clusters of white lilac fringed the parking lot and tulips blew behind allotment wire.
▪ He was waiting while his vivid red roses were wrapped in the distinctive lilac and silver paper.
▪ In San Francisco, lilacs are a sure-fire conversation stopper.
▪ The particular quality of the light in the early mornings, lilacs after rain, the scents of spring.
▪ When she went to bring in the mail, though, and found the mailbox full of lilacs, her heart flooded.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Lilac

Lilac \Li"lac\ (l[imac]"lak), n. [Also lilach.] [Sp. lilac, lila, Ar. l[=i]lak, fr. Per. l[=i]laj, l[=i]lanj, l[=i]lang, n[=i]laj, n[=i]l, the indigo plant, or from the kindred l[=i]lak bluish, the flowers being named from the color. Cf. Anil.]

  1. (Bot.) A shrub of the genus Syringa. There are six species, natives of Europe and Asia. Syringa vulgaris, the common lilac, and Syringa Persica, the Persian lilac, are frequently cultivated for the fragrance and beauty of their purplish or white flowers. In the British colonies various other shrubs have this name.

  2. A light purplish color like that of the flower of the purplish lilac.

    California lilac (Bot.), a low shrub with dense clusters of purplish flowers ( Ceanothus thyrsiflorus).

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
lilac

1620s, from French lilac "shrub of genus Syringa with mauve flowers," from Spanish lilac, from Arabic lilak, from Persian lilak, variant of nilak "bluish," from nil "indigo" (compare Sanskrit nilah "dark blue"), of uncertain origin. As a color name, attested from 1791; as a scent, from 1895. As an adjective, "pale pinkish-purple," from 1801. Related: Lilaceous.

Wiktionary
lilac
  1. (colour) having a pale purple colour. n. 1 A large shrub of the genus ''Syringa'', bearing white, pale pink(,) or purple flowers. 2 A flower of the lilac shru

  2. 3 A pale purple color, the colour of some lilac flowers.

WordNet
lilac
  1. adj. of a pale purple color [syn: lavender]

  2. n. any of various plants of the genus Syringa having large panicles of usually fragrant flowers

Wikipedia
Lilac (color)

Lilac is a color that is a pale violet tone representing the average color of most lilac flowers. It might also be described as dark mauve or light purple. The colors of some lilac flowers may be equivalent to the colors shown below as pale lilac, rich lilac, or deep lilac. There are other lilac flowers that are colored red-violet.

The first recorded use of lilac as an English color name was in 1775.

Lilac (train)

The was a limited express train service in Hokkaido, Japan, operated by Japanese National Railways (JNR) and later Hokkaido Railway Company (JR Hokkaido) between 1980 and 2007.

Usage examples of "lilac".

The Hemp Agrimony grows with us in moist, shady places, with a tall reddish stem, and with terminal crowded heads of dull lilac flowers.

Quietly, Asey circled around the barn, glided along the shadow of a thick lilac hedge toward the rear of the house, and finally came to a stop just a few feet away from the back door.

The sun still dappled through the branches of the huge old poplars the way it always had, and the hedges of caragana and lilac and cotoneaster were just as familiar.

Similarly, the now purple bruises left on her breastflesh by Duke were somehow complemented by the cupless lilac basque that was hooked tightly beneath them.

They sailed under clipped green, fresh-watered trees, through flowered lanes, past daffodil, lilac, violet, rose, and peppermint-coloured houses on the dustless road.

The mingled scents of hyacinths, narcissus, freesia, imported mimosa, and lilac filled the air, diminishing the peculiar musty smell of mildew and dust and old wood that was so prevalent in the church.

The Three Mulla-Mulgars and The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit and The Book of Three, Elidor and The Moon of Gomrath, Five Children and It, and Half Magic and Over Sea, Under Stone -- the kind of book that could distill an entire summer into a few hundred pages, the kind of book that can still summon up memories of hammocks and peach ice cream and the scent of lilacs, even if you actually first read them in a damp attic room smelling of wet sheetrock and ant traps.

She always chose soft, rather feminine outfits, arid this morning she wore a simple lilac wool suit and a matching blouse with a frilly jabot which fell down the front, gold jewelry, and black patent pumps and handbag.

Maurice said it was too cold to be outside, the dude in his lilac do-rag and tailored black pea jacket, enough shoulders in the coat for White Boy Bob-White Boy wearing a wool shirt hanging out over his T-shirt-coming behind them up the ramp to the front door of the Kronk Recreation Center at McGraw and Junction, a two-story red-brick building that looked to Glenn like a public library no one used in a poor section of town.

Even ahorse, the Lady Nym looked graceful, dressed all in shimmering lilac robes and a great silk cape of cream and copper that lifted at every gust of wind, and made her look as if she might take flight.

After relieving Josef of the burden of his innocence the previous night, in a procedure that required less time than it now took her to brew a pot of coffee, Trudi had pulled on her cherry-pink kimono and gone out to the parlor to study a text on phlebotomy, leaving Josef to the warmth of her goose-down counterpane, the lilac smell of her nape and cheek lingering on the cool pillow, the perfumed darkness of her bedroom, the shame of his contentment.

And thus it came to pass that in the dusk of a November evening the Russian boy, murmuring a few of the prayers of his Church for luck, gave hasty but decent burial to a large polecat under the lilac trees at Hoopington.

I think of a semi-formal arrangement of rhodies and azaleas, lilacs and viburnum, with a potentilla perhaps, or a butterfly bush for late summer color.

Luke leapt to his feet as two figures in lilac one-piece suits sprang from beneath the drooping leafy strands of a rimu tree.

When later I went to boarding school and the schoolroom became my bedroom I had my bed by the east window, and could watch the sun come up over the horizon and paint a huge skyscape of clouds lilac and saffron and crimson and rose.