A lilac. Rustic.
1780. A contributor to Notes and Queries, 8 S. ii. 108, furnishes the following: see also id. 253, with citation 1769.
LAYLOCK = LILAC.Laylock is a North-County provincialism for lilac; but was the former ever the correct or old spelling of the word? I find an example of its use in the Westminster Magazine for 1780. At p. *334 (at the second pagination thus) its Monthly Chronicle for June 5 records that on Sunday [George III.] entered into the forty-third year of his age, and that on the Monday there was a levee, and afterwards a drawing-room, at St. Jamess
. The Ladies dresses in general were composed of laylock, white, and straw-coloured silks, most elegantly trimmed with flowers, silver spotted gauze, ornamented and intermixed with foil.
1837. Square, you do nt know nawthing about that yong woman, yender, do ye?with that lay-lock dress on to herdo ye?Knick. Mag., x. 167 (Aug.).
1859. Lalocks flowered late that year, and he got a great bunch off from the bushes in the Hancock front-yard.Holmes, The Professor at the Breakfast-Table, ch. ii.
1861. The laylocks wuz in bloom, an all overhead the lane wuz rustlin ith the great purple plumes in the moonlight.Atlantic Monthly, vii. p. 149/2 (Feb.).
1862.
The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud; | |
The orchards turn to heaps o rosy cloud. | |
Lowell, Biglow Papers, 2nd Series, No. 6. |