lil

• IPA^(key): /lɪl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪl
• Homophone: Lil

lil

1. Alternative form of li'l

lil (plural lils)

1. (gypsy slang, obsolete) A book.
   • 1851, George Borrow, Lavengro: The Scholar-The Gypsy-The Priest:

     [H]e'll have quite enough to do in writing his own lils, and telling the world how handsome and clever he was; and who can blame him? Not I. If I could write lils, every word should be about myself and my own tacho Rommanis — my own lawful wedded wife, which is the same thing.

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

• ill, Ill., ILL, 'ill, I'll

• (Western) IPA^(key): /ˈlil/

lil

1. to look like, appear

• 2007. The UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Department of Linguistics.

• IPA^(key):

lil

1. masculine singular past active participle of lít

lil f (genitive singular lile, nominative plural lile)

1. (obsolete) Alternative form of lile (“lily”)

lil

1. far

From Arabic لِ (li). The final -l may be due to backformation from the personal forms, themselves derived by reduplication. Compare Moroccan Arabic ليل (līl, “for”), North Levantine Arabic لإلي (laʔilli, “to me”), لإلك (laʔillak, “to you”), etc., reduplicated personal forms of ل (la). And compare a similar backformation from the personal forms in Maltese lejn.

lil

1. to, with

   Synonym: għand

lil (nominative plural lils)

1. ear

• lilön