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From the M-W Editors
sully was our Word of the Day on 05/18/2014. Hear the podcast!
Theme music by Joshua Stamper ©2006 New Jerusalem Music/ASCAP
Examples of sully in a Sentence
people that sully our state parks with their trash
a once-gleaming marble interior sullied by decades of exposure to cigarette smoke
Recent Examples of sully from the Web
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Wells then re-tells that story, mockingly, and then Jasmine and Amanda also re-tell that story; basically, Christen is Scallop Girl now; her reputation has been sullied forever.
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The rivals are facing each other for the second time, with opinion polls putting them neck-and-neck after two months of campaigning marked by fiery rhetoric but public speeches largely free of the ethnic hate that has sullied previous contests.
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Major League Baseball should not have his name sullying its record book.
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After two months of campaigning marked by fiery rhetoric but public speeches largely free of the ethnic hate that has sullied previous contests, opinion polls have put the pair neck-and-neck.
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Some students and alumni worry that the resulting notoriety will sully the institute’s name and the value of their degrees.
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With diesel crucial to Daimler’s strategy to meet targets for lower carbon-dioxide emissions, the automaker can ill afford to have the technology further sullied by doubts and allegations.
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That dignity is sullied by a government that forces its people to serve as unwilling vessels for beliefs that repel them.
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Team, this isn’t the dark ages, when women on their periods were thought to be sullied and sent into isolation, forbidden from even touching the same cutlery as men.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'sully.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
The spelling of sully has shifted several times since it was sylian in Old-English, but its meaning has remained essentially the same: "to soil." If you're looking for other words that mean "to soil," you can try out befoul, besmirch, blacken, foul, grime, stain, or simply dirty. You might wonder if the English word sullen (meaning "gloomy or morose") is a relative of sully, and the answer is no. Sullen traces back by way of Anglo- and Old French to Latin solus, meaning "alone."
Origin and Etymology of sully
Middle English *sullien, probably alteration (influenced by Anglo-French suillier, soiller to soil) of sulen to soil, from Old English sylian
sully Synonyms
Synonyms
befoul, begrime, bemire, besmirch, blacken, daub, distain [archaic], foul, gaum [dialect], grime, mire, muck, muddy, smirch, smudge, soil, stain, dirtyAntonyms
clean, cleanseRelated Words
contaminate, defile, pollute, taint; discolor; confuse, disarrange, disarray, dishevel, disorder, draggle, jumble, mess, muddle; colly [chiefly British dialect], crock [dialect]Near Antonyms
decontaminate, purge, purify; disinfect, sanitize; brush, dry-clean, dust, launder, mop, rinse, scour, scrub, sweep, wash, wipe; brighten, deodorize, freshen, renew, spruce (up); straighten (up), tidy (up)First Known Use of sully
1601
Sully
play
biographical name
Sul·ly
\
ˈsə-lē
\
Definition of Sully
Thomas 1783–1872 American (English-born) painter
SULLY Defined for English Language Learners
sully
play
verb
Definition of sully for English Language Learners
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: to damage or ruin the good quality of (something)
Learn More about sully
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See words that rhyme with sully Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for sully Spanish Central: Translation of sully Nglish: Translation of sully for Spanish speakers
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