paint the lily

To add embellishment to something that is already beautiful or outstanding. The phrase comes from Shakespeare's King John: "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily ... is wasteful and ridiculous excess." My wife is so gorgeous that putting her in a fancy gown would just be painting the lily. Why add a filter to your photo of the rainbow? No need to paint the lily.

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Teutorigos	-	Ancient Celtic
Kathryn	KATH-rin	English
Tijana	-	Serbian, Croatian
Shelley	SHEL-ee	English
Nicholas	NIK-ə-ləs (English), nee-ko-LAH (French)	English, French
Masaru	mah-sah-ṙoo	Japanese