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sully

verb
/ˈsʌli/US

Etymology

From Middle English sulen, sulien (“to become dirty; to defile, pollute, taint”), from Old English sylian (“to soil, pollute; to sully”), from Proto-West Germanic *sulwōn, *sulwijan (“to make dirty; to sully”), from Proto-Indo-European *sūl- (“thick liquid, muck”), perhaps conflated partially with Old French souillier (“to soil”) (modern French souiller) from the same Germanic source. The word is cognate with Danish søle (“to sully”), West Flemish seulewen (“to sully”) (Middle Dutch soluwen (“to sully”)), German sühlen (“to sully”), Old Saxon sulian (“to sully”), Swedish söla (“to sully”). Also compare Middle English sulpen (“to defile, pollute”), Old English solian (“to soil, become defiled, make or become foul”), and see more at soil.

  1. derived from *sūl-✻
  2. inherited from *sulwōn✻
  3. inherited from sylian
  4. inherited from sulen

Definitions

  1. To soil or stain

    To soil or stain; to dirty.

    • He did not wish to sully his hands with gardening.
    • THoſe Ills your Anceſtors have done, / Romans, are now become your own ; / And they will coſt you dear, / Unleſs you ſoon repair / The falling Temples which the Gods provoke, / And Statues ſully’d yet with Sacrilegious Smoke.
    • His nether garment was of yellow nankeen, closely fitted to the shape, and tied at his bunches of knees by large knots of white ribbon, a good deal sullied by use.

  2. To corrupt or damage.

    • She tried to sully her rival’s reputation with a suggestive comment.
    • As a child, Jane [Eyre] is completely bereft of love, living a loveless existence, which sullies her character. Her emotions are raw and, on the surface, completely out of control.

  3. To become soiled or tarnished.

    • [G]old bears the fire, which ſilver doth not: but that is an excellency in nature, but it is nothing at all in uſe; for any dignity in uſe I know none, but that ſilvering will ſully and canker more than gilding; […]
  4. ›+ 4 more definitions

    1. A blemish.

      • You laying these ſlight ſallies on my ſonne, / As t'were a thing a little ſoyld with working, […]
      • Roses, ere their crimson breast / Throws aside its green moss vest; / Young hearts, or ere toil, or care, / Or gold, has left a sully there.

    2. A surname.

    3. A diminutive of the male given name Sullivan.

    4. A placename

      A placename:

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at sully. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01sully02soiled03defiled04dirty05unclean06chaste07pure08unsullied09sullied

A definitional loop anchored at sully. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at sully

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA