Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To mar the cleanness or luster of; soil or stain.
- v. To defile; taint.
- n. Archaic Something that stains or spots.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To soil; stain; tarnish; defile.
- Figuratively, to stain or tarnish morally.
- To dim; darken.
- To be or become soiled or tarnished.
- n. Soil; tarnish; spot.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To soil; to dirty; to spot; to tarnish; to stain; to darken; -- used literally and figuratively.
- v. To become soiled or tarnished.
- n. Soil; tarnish; stain.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make dirty or spotty, as by exposure to air; also used metaphorically
- v. place under suspicion or cast doubt upon
- v. charge falsely or with malicious intent; attack the good name and reputation of someone
- n. United States painter (born in England) of portraits and historical scenes (1783-1872)
- n. French statesman (1560-1641)
Etymologies
- From Middle English sulien (also sulwen), from Old English sylian ("to sully, soil, pollute"), from Proto-Germanic *suliwōnan, *sulwōnan, *sulwijanan (“to sully, make dirty”), from Proto-Indo-European *sūl- (“thick liquid, muck”). Cognate with Old Saxon sulian ("to sully"), Middle Dutch soluwen ("to sully"), German sühlen ("to sully"), Danish søle ("to sully"), Swedish söla ("to sully"). Perhaps conflated partially with Old French souillier ("to soil";> French souiller), from the same Germanic source. Related also to Old English solian ("to soil, become defiled, make or become foul"). More at soil. (Wiktionary)
- Probably from French souiller, from Old French; see soil2. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“July 5th, 2006 at 4: 53 pm seabiscuit says: sully is another one: unless he is getting paid the billion dollars that the ceo of exxon got to deny climate crisis is happening, what’s in it for him? why do it? why lie about the fate of the earth?”
“There was no plot to 'sully' the reputation of Joe Wilson (not that identifying his wife as a CIA employee would accomplish that anyway).”
Beyond the Pale, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“President Nicholas Sarkozy was roundly criticized for losing his cool at the recent annual Agriculture Fair by insulting a constituent who refused to shake his hand (while saying it would "sully" him to be touched by the president.)”
“Most folks know that lots of American stars who would never "sully" their images over here by doing cheap car and makeup ads have no problem doing so overseas obviously, Catherine Zeta-Jones doesn't consider her ad career to be anything to be ashamed of.”
“HEMMER: How do they say "sully" in Russian, by the way?”
“Then something happened at the very end to kind of sully it.”
“The heroic actions of pilot chesley "sully" sullenberger in guiding U.S. Airways flight”
“Chesley "sully" Sullenberger to ditch the plane in the Hudson River in a miracle landing.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘sully’.
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Words that look like adverbs but aren't
manly, womanly, ungainly, slovenly, homily, costly, dastardly, family, sparkly, wrinkly, oily, orderly and 69 more...
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man gre
abase, abeyance, abreast, abscission, abscond, abyss, accede, accretion, acerbic, acidulous, acumen, adulterate and 481 more...
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Cloudy
with a chance of mizzle
puff, nebulous, fog, overcast, becloud, bedim, taint, befog, dapple, mottle, sully, pother and 83 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
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words I learned from Firefly
Joss Whedon knows no shame
fancible, foufaraw, frippery, corpsified, shindig, rutting, creepifying, gorram, ironical, sanguine, pantywaist ijit, whinge and 24 more...
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capitalcreative's Words
deviltry, visceral, cassanova, assuage, genesis, hot minute, osmosis, wistful, sublime, loathe, farfetched, newfangled and 283 more...
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GRE
pejorative, austere, unconscionable, lissome, edify, winsome, axiom, malinger, abjure, deleterious, contumacious, peregrinate and 152 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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Learned
ambergris, andiron, aphelion, austral, bellicose, boreal, bravura, chaff, chicanery, creditable, credulous, decamp and 223 more...
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quality words
This is a mix of new words I've read studying for the GRE verbal and words I use normally. I also check back on these words if I don't use them often enough.
ineffable, septuagenarian, sesquipedalian, argyle, coalescence, profundity, vivisepulture, defenestrate, concatenate, usurp, diatribe, veracious and 461 more...
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kat's words
ecumenical, cacophony, clatter, marimba, bamboo, saffron, slice, mercurial, pomegranate, cranky, slipshod, scritch and 511 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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List 1
erudite, iniquitous, acrimonious, implacable, fractious, irascible, debonair, churlish, brusque, sycophantic, phlegmatic, indomitable and 108 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for sully.
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