Verb
people that sully our state parks with their trash
a once-gleaming marble interior sullied by decades of exposure to cigarette smoke
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Verb
Yasmin, who was ousted from Pierpoint after a tabloid scandal involving her publishing-magnate father threatened to sully the bank by association, has turned to another undependable man for salvation, proposing to an aristocratic failson called Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington).—Inkoo Kang, New Yorker, 9 Feb. 2026 The problem is, people were drinking a lot of bad ones, sullying their opinion of the drink.—Jeremy Repanich, Robb Report, 7 Feb. 2026 Revelations in 2020 that Boohoo’s Leicester contractors were subjecting their workers to exploitative pay and unsafe conditions certainly sullied the Midlands city’s reputation.—Jasmin Malik Chua, Sourcing Journal, 6 Feb. 2026 Those campaigns were seemingly effective; crowds in South Beach last March were much smaller than in the past, when multiple spring break periods had been sullied by shootings, stampedes and curfews.—Aaron Leibowitz, Miami Herald, 5 Feb. 2026 See All Example Sentences for sully
Word History
Etymology
Verb
Middle English *sullien, probably alteration (influenced by Anglo-French suillier, soiller to soil) of sulen to soil, from Old English sylian