lily-white

lily-white

1. Pure white in color. The locals were absolutely fascinated with our lily-white skin.
2. Strait-laced; totally honest. You're being naïve if you think the top business people are lily white.
3. Consisting solely or primarily of white people. He'd always lived in lily-white towns, so he felt a bit out of place when he moved to a city with a large black community.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • (as) white as snow
  • white as snow
  • (as) white as the driven snow
  • white man
  • white hole
  • hit the white
  • white on rice
  • white wedding
  • same difference
  • diff
References in periodicals archive
"I'm comfortable in my own lily-white, wobbly skin and though I may not have travelled to the ends of the earth and back, two weeks in Majorca with the hubby and kids was just as much fun."
They lived in a house in the station yard Where trains puffed by with a squeal and a toot, The station now closed, the house boarded up No lily-white sheets to get covered in soot.
For his part, Curly is slick enough to navigate the gray between the black and white and come out lily-white. Larry, on the other hand, can't quite discern the depths of evil that lie in the hearts of those he's befriended.
"It is vital that local politicians are lily-white and have the trust and respect of the public but Mr Ahmed has flouted the law and he should step down for the duration of his ban.
Summary: Newcomers to Lebanon ought to be forgiven if over the weekend they were led to believe that top Lebanese leaders are a group of lily-white, peace-loving, multiculturalists who would go to great lengths to preserve stability and inter-communal harmony in this country.
This three-volume revised edition presents information on 225 "ethnic" writers of the United States, by which the editors apparently mean not lily-white, as there are no, say, Irish American or Lithuanian American writers included.
Now America has elected its first non-white president and his lily-white veep.
Ostensibly it's about how a black boy, orphaned when he was seven and raised in a lily-white, Edwardian society overcame every barrier to become Britain's first black Army officer.
(don't call it that) is lily-white. We became a majority-minority county in 2004, and Latinos will outnumber whites in two decades if current demographic trends hold.
After all, unlike lily-white Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada has a diverse, growing population.
Washington when he feared a nomination challenge; once his nomination was secure he courted Southern whites and, later, created a lily-white Southern Bull Moose Party.
NOT A GENUINE BLACK MAN OR, HOW I CLAIMED MY PIECE OF GROUND IN THE LILY-WHITE SUBURBS should serve as an inspiration for any black reader.
Lulu Xingwana, South Africa's outspoken deputy minister for mineral, has condemned the decision by the diamond giant, De Beers, to replace its outgoing managing director with another "lily-white" male.
That's the same thing that's happening now--buy the drugs and drive back to lily-white suburbia.
The Amish were the virgin, lily-white America of strong families and simple values, before all hell broke loose and things went wrong.