lily-liveredly

From lily-livered +‎ -ly.

lily-liveredly (comparative more lily-liveredly, superlative most lily-liveredly)

1. (rare) In a lily-livered manner.
   • 1928 December 28, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “[…] It’s Either You Fight or You Die”, in Aldous Huxley, editor, The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, published 1932, →OCLC, part 4 (December 1923–February 1930), page 780:

     It’s either you fight or you die. / Young Gents, you’ve got no option. / No good asking the reason why, / It’s either you fight or you die, / Die, die, lily-liveredly die, / Or fight and make the splinters fly, / Bust up the holy apple pie. / You’ve got no option.

     Published in his 1929 poetry collection Pansies.

   • 2010, Gregory Dark, chapter 11, in Charming! or, If the Glass Slipper Fits…, Ropley, Hampshire: O Books, →ISBN, page 50:

     If more rootin’ countries acted decisively like tootin’ Zanoria and not lily-liveredly like rootin’-tootin’ France the better place the whole rootin’-tootin’ planet’d be.

   • 2011, Nuala Jackson, “Thursday 6th February”, in Whoopee!! I’m Going to Die!, Drogheda, County Louth: Choice Publishing & Book Services, →ISBN, page 18:

     Afraid my emotions would betray me, I repressed my instincts and lily-liveredly accepted the accusations of authority that she wouldn’t, rather than her protestations that she couldn’t.

   • 2013, Lucy King, chapter 14, in One More Sleepless Night (Harlequin KISS; 13), Don Mills, Ont.: Harlequin, →ISBN; republished in Just Once More… (By Request), London: Mills & Boon, 2016, →ISBN, page 171:

     Taking a deep breath, Rafael made himself face up to the facts he’d stupidly and lily-liveredly shied away from in an absurd effort to distance himself from Nicky and the way she made him feel, his pulse racing and his breathing shallowing.

• “lily-liveredly, adv.” under “lily, n. and adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.