Lucy

Borrowed from Old French Lucie, from Lucia, name of a Sicilian martyr, from the Latin feminine form of the Roman praenomen Lucius, from lux (“light”). The name of the Australopithecus skeleton came from the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", which the discoverers were listening to at the time. The song also gave its name to the slang term for LSD, as many believe it is essentially a reference to the drug.

• IPA^(key): /ˈluːsi/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːsi

Lucy

1. A female given name.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book V, canto IV, stanza 9:

     Then did my younger brother Amidas / Love that same other Damzell, Lucy bright,/ To whom but little dowre allotted was;/ Her vertue was the dowre, that did delight.

   • 1798 William Wordsworth: She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways:

     She lived unknown, and few would know / When Lucy ceased to be;/ But she is in her grave, and, oh,/ The difference to me!

   • 1830 Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village: Fourth Series: Cottage Names:

     But certainly there are some names which seem to belong to particular classes of character, to form the mind and even influence the destiny: Louisa, now; - is not your Louisa necessarily a die-away damsel, who reads novels, and holds her head on one side, languishing and given to love! Is not Lucy a pretty soubrette, a wearer of cast gowns and cast smiles, smart and coquettish!

   • 2009 Dora Raymond, Aunt Dora's Legacy, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 19 ( Lucy Who ):

     Now we'll just use a fiction name / Lucy that sounds nice / A name we can remember / Without repeating twice / / My name is so old fashioned / And they are very few / But some will have a puzzled look / And whisper Lucy who?

2. A surname​ derived from place names in Normandy based on a male personal name, from Latin Lucius.
   • 1591, William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals):

     : Act IV, Scene IV:

     Here is Sir William Lucy, who with me / Set from our o'ermatch'd forces forth for aid.

3. The partial skeleton of a female Australopithecus afarensis, an early ancestor of human beings.
4. (slang) The drug LSD.
   • Dick Cavett

     The last time I made moocah, or dug sweet Lucy, was with Janis Joplin, who gave me one that must have been rolled by Montezuma himself. I saw my thoughts in clear letters, and they both felt and looked like a double strike on a coin […]

   • 1984, Lynne Reid Banks, The Warning Bell, page 302:

     Tanya shook her head slowly. 'We married to fill out the missing bits of ourselves. That doesn't have to be a bad reason. But you see, I'd been "in it". The contrast between that infernal blaze of feeling and keep-the-home-fires burning was just too much. It's why one mustn't start taking Lucy.' Lucy was the current slang for LSD.

• Miss Lucy

• variants: Lucia, Luci, Lucile, Lucille
• male given names: Lucius, Lucian

Borrowed from English Lucy. Also a shortening of Lucia.

Lucy

1. a female given name
2. a nickname for Lucia, Lucilla, etc.

Borrowed from English Lucy.

Lucy

1. A female given name