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.
Synonyms of gullible
Examples of gullible in a Sentence
Bruce Schneier, IEEE Spectrum, 21 Jan. 2026
Norris’s archetypically American tale gave Stroheim an opportunity to build on his earlier depictions of Americans abroad as gullible and oblivious.
—Richard Brody, New Yorker, 17 Jan. 2026
Traitors is about the gullible and the skeptical working together to sieve the fraudulent from the truthful, an amalgamated nightmare of village idiots locking themselves in the stocks and pelting each other with rotten fruit.
—Raven Smith, Vogue, 9 Jan. 2026
Eduardo Montalvo, Coral Gables On sticking with Trump The real tragedy of the current occupant of the White House is that millions of Americans are sufficiently gullible, ignorant or bigoted to have voted for him and still support him.
—Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 3 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for gullible
Cite this Entry
“Gullible.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gullible. Accessed 28 Jan. 2026.
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