gullible
adjective
Did you know?
“Let a gull steal my fries once, shame on the gull; let a gull steal my fries twice, shame on me.” So goes the classic, oft-repeated seaside maxim reminding people to guard against being gullible. Okay, that’s not really how the old saw goes, but on the off chance that you believed our little trick, you yourself were, however briefly, gullible—that is, “easily duped.” The adjective gullible grew out of the older verb gull, meaning “to deceive or take advantage of.” (That gull originally meant “to guzzle or gulp greedily,” and comes from an even older gull meaning “throat, gullet.”) Another relative is the noun gull, referring to a person who is easy to cheat. However, no matter how much the seabirds we call gulls love to pilfer our potatoes, that avian gull has no relation, and is instead of Celtic origin—we promise.
Examples of gullible in a Sentence
Ew Staff, EW.com, 20 Mar. 2025
Chamberlain was gullible and naïve, and Chamberlain’s appeasement to Hitler is considered one of the biggest betrayals in modern history.
—Tom Zirpoli, Baltimore Sun, 11 Mar. 2025
In an interview with Greg Gutfeld on Fox News in October, Kennedy suggested weight loss drugs were being pushed on to gullible Americans by foreign pharmaceutical companies that wouldn’t even market the drugs in their home countries.
—Nathaniel Weixel, The Hill, 17 Feb. 2025
There was a lot to unpack in that episode about Eli and Aimee-Leigh, who never actually believed that Y2K was a threat, just another opportunity to soak their gullible parishioners for money.
—Scott Tobias, Vulture, 14 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for gullible
Cite this Entry
“Gullible.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gullible. Accessed 13 Jun. 2025.
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