1,400 new words in our dictionary! — Parasocial, glow-up, promposal & more
1,400 new words in our dictionary! — More

gulling

verb

present participle of gull
as in fooling
to cause to believe what is untrue we were gulled into believing that if we answered the e-mail, we'd somehow become millionaires, but instead we just got put on a list for junk mail

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for gulling
  1. fooling
  2. tricking
  3. deceiving
Verb
  • In the highlight, Marshall retrieves the ball and oddly fires it back to the infield, fooling no one.
    — Tyler Kepner, New York Times, 4 Sep. 2026
  • Anybody hoping that a Netanyahu defeat in October and the emergence of a less controversial successor will reset the table is likely fooling themselves.
    — Daniel DePetris, Chicago Tribune, 18 Aug. 2026
Definition of fooling
Verb
  • An English springer spaniel in Alabama loves nothing more than spending her whole day in the pool and has taken to tricking her parents into letting her into the pool every day.
    — Saman Shafiq, USA Today, 6 Sep. 2026
  • In many cases, the robot tail wags the living dog by tricking it—tricking us—into caring about obscure metrics, then gamifying the process of improving them.
    — Hillary Busis, Vanity Fair, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of tricking
Verb
  • The public deserves to know which of his points were defensible and which were deceiving.
    — Stewart Mandel, New York Times, 14 Sep. 2026
  • At Ground Zero, 9/11 widow Terry Strada accused Saudi Arabia of deceiving victims’ families and urged the administration to rethink Washington’s close ties as a landmark lawsuit moves forward.
    — Collin Binkley, Los Angeles Times, 11 Sep. 2026
Definition of deceiving
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

gullies
gulling
gulls
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Gulling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/gulling. Accessed 17 Sep. 2026.

Copy Citation
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

More from Merriam-Webster

Word of the Day

Listen to the pronunciation of watershed

See Definitions and Examples »

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

Why do we use apostrophes to show possession?

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

The Exceptions of '-s' and '-es' Plurals

A Who’s Who Regarding ‘Who’s’ and ‘Whose’

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

Back to School Vocabulary

Words from the 'Odyssey'

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World
See More

Popular

See More

Why do we use apostrophes to show possession?

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

Back to School Vocabulary
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
funny guinea pig in glasses reading a book
Challenging Words You Should Know Vol 2 Words to the wise
See All