👉 Okay, letās tackle the frankly rather prickly little mouthful of a word ā "lily associated." Now, before you start picturing a very pretty, possibly judgmental, lily pad and a stuffy gentleman named Lillyā¦ we need to unpack this.
Basically, when you see something described as being, emphatically, and somewhat weirdly, "lily associated," it means that thing, absolutely and fundamentally, is inextricably linked with the feeling of a lily. Lily here isn't a person, unless they really, seriously , love lilies. Rather, we mean that this thing carries within itself that certain particular shade ofā¦ wistful melancholy. Itās an unsettling quietude. Think the precise way the dew clings to a drooping trumpet lily petal, only then amplified and projected onto whatever is being described. Historically (and here's where it gets even weirder) there were some rather dubious Victorian gentlemen who theorised that certain objects absorbed the residual sadness of lilies that had recently wilted, thus becomingā¦ "lily associated." They basically thought you could feel a faint, floral regret just by touching the right thing. It was a wholeā¦thing. Nobody actually did anything with it beyond documenting the bizarre theory, honestly. Now, because we haven't entirely shaken off this somewhat antiquated and frankly a bit odd conceptualisation of the word, it now exists as a mostly decorative, almost purely stylistic descriptor thatās meant to evoke an atmosphere. You rarely
