gull
/ˈɡʌl/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Northern England/ɡʊl/
gull noun: a seabird of the genus Larus or of the subfamily Larinae.
Noun (1)
gull (plural gulls)
- A seabird of the genus Larus or of the subfamily Larinae.
- The tide was out, and we drew up amid the strong bracing smell of seaweed, with gulls screeching, wheeling around, and gliding on the wind.1947 January–February, O. S. Nock, “‘The Aberdonian’ in Wartime”, in The Railway Magazine, volume 93, number 567, page 8
- Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight—how to get from shore to food and back again.[…]For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.1970, Richard Bach, “Part One”, in Jonathan Livingston Seagull: A Story, Macmillan; republished as complete edition, Scribner, 21 October 2014, →ISBN, page 4
- Any of various pierid butterflies of the genus Cepora.
Noun (2)
gull (plural gulls)
- A cheating trick; a fraud.
- BENEDICK. [Aside] I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide itself in such reverence.1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- A stupid animal.
- One easily cheated; a dupe.
- A swindler or trickster.
- You'll excuse me, sir, but as you are fresh, take care to avoid the gulls; they fly about here in large flocks, I assure you, and do no little mischief at times." "I never understood that gulls were birds of prey," said I.—"Only in Oxford, sir; and here, I assure you, they bite like hawks, and pick...1825, Bernard Blackmantle, The English Spy
Verb (1)
gull (third-person singular simple present gulls, present participle gulling, simple past and past participle gulled)
- To deceive or cheat.
- O, but to ha' gulled him / Had been a mastery.1610 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Alchemist, London: […] Thomas Snodham, for Walter Burre, and are to be sold by Iohn Stepneth, […], published 1612, →OCLC, (please specify the Internet...
- The vulgar, gulled into rebellion, armed.1660, [John] Dryden, Astraea Redux
- To mislead.
- To trick and defraud.
- To flatter, wheedle.
Noun (3)
gull (plural gulls)
Verb (2)
gull (third-person singular simple present gulls, present participle gulling, simple past and past participle gulled)
- To sweep away by the force of running water; to carve or wear into a gully.
Proper noun capitalized: Gull
Gull (plural Gulls)
- A surname.
Noun (4) capitalized: Gull
Gull (plural Gulls)
- A player, supporter or other person connected with Torquay United Football Club.
gull meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Telugu
gull in Tamil
- ஏமாற்று, நீள்சிறகுடை கடற்பறவை, ஆற்றங்கரை உடைப்பு
gull in Marathi
- seabird
- समुद्रकावळा samudrakāvḷā
gull in Urdu
- شرارت, بےوقوف بنانا, شرات کرنا, الو بنانا
gull in Telugu
- గుల్ల్
More languagesFewer languages
- gull in Malayalam
- പറ്റിക്കുക, കളിപ്പിക്കുക, വഞ്ചിക്കുക, കണ്ണുകെട്ടുക
- gull in Kannada
- ಗುಲ್ಲ್
- gull in Punjabi
- ਡਮਰਾ ḍamrā, ਸਮੁੰਦਰੀ ਮੁਰਗਾਬੀ samundrī murgābī
- gull in Arabic
- نَوْرَس nawras
- gull in Malay
- burung camar, camar
- gull in Persian
- مرغ دریایی morġ-e daryâyi
- gull in Vietnamese
- hải âu, mòng biển, mòng bể
- gull in Myanmar
- စင်ရော် cang-rau
Examples of gull in a sentence
- And is all this Cabala too, and only to be uſed vvhen People are to be gulled vvith noiſy Nothings? i.e. vvith empty Pleroma's, and ſilent Thunderclaps.1697 May 5 (date written; Gregorian calendar), E. W. [i.e., Edward Stillingfleet], “Postscript”, in The Bishop of Worcester’s Answer to Mr....
- I'm not gulling him for the emperor's service.c. 1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Wallenstein:
- [S]peak your curses out / Against me, who would sooner crush and grind / A brace of toads, than league with them to oppress / An innocent lady, gull an Emperor […]a. 1822 (date written), John Keats, “Otho the Great: A Tragedy in Five Acts.”, in [Horace Elisha Scudder], editor, The Complete Poetical...
- In Berlin when Jack needed a spare girl Mary had kept watch, gulled room keys out of concierges, replaced stolen documents in dangerous desks, driven scared Joes to safe flats.1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy:
Synonyms of gull
Forms of gull
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | gulls |
| alternative form | gool |
| plural | Gulls |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | gulls |
| present participle | gulling |
| past participle | gulled |
| past | gulled |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Gulls |
Origin of gull
Inherited from Middle English gulle, from a Brythonic language (compare Breton gouelan, Welsh gwylan, and Cornish golan), from Proto-Brythonic *gwuɨlann, from Proto-Celtic *weilannā (“seagull”). Cognate with Old Irish foílenn, Scottish Gaelic faoileag. Compare French goéland, a borrowing from Breton. Eclipsed Middle English lare (borrowed from Latin larus) and Middle English mewe (from Old English mæw).
Perhaps from an obsolete term gull (“to swallow, guzzle”), from Middle English golen (“to make swallowing motions, gape”), from Middle English gole (“throat”).
From Middle English gole (“a whirlpool, narrow inlet of the sea, ditch or stream”), from Middle Low German goel, gȫl, gȫle (“swamp, marshy lowland”), related to Old Dutch gulla (“pool, puddle”), Old French goille (“pool, puddle, pond”), all ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *goli, *golljā (“puddle”), perhaps from Proto-Germanic *guljaz, *guljǭ.
Words formed from gull
- as the gull flies
- Audouin's gull
- black-backed gull
- black-headed gull
- Bonaparte's gull
- Cape gull
- Caspian gull
- common gull
- Dominican gull
- European herring gull
- flood gull
- Franklin's gull
- glaucous gull
- glaucous-winged gull
- great black-backed gull
- greater black-backed gull
- gull-billed tern
- gull chaser
- gullfeed
- gullwing
- gull-wing
- Heermann's gull
- herring gull
- Iceland gull
- ivory gull
- kelp gull
- land gull
- laughing gull
- lesser black-backed gull
- little gull
- mackerel gull
- Mediterranean gull
- mew gull
- Olympic gull
- Pacific gull
- Pallas's gull
- red-billed gull
- ring-billed gull
- robber gull
- Ross's gull
- Sabine's gull
- sea-gull
- seagull
- shark-gull
- silver gull
- slaty-backed gull
- slender-billed gull
- southern black-backed gull
- white-eyed gull
- yellow-legged gull
- gullable
- gullcatcher
- guller
- gullery
- gullible → gullibility
- gullibly
- gullish
- gullick
Phrases with gull
Words that rhyme with gull
4 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about gull
- What does gull mean?
- Gull means a seabird of the genus Larus or of the subfamily Larinae.
- What is gull in Tamil?
- Gull in Tamil is ஏமாற்று, நீள்சிறகுடை கடற்பறவை, ஆற்றங்கரை உடைப்பு. See Gull meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use gull in a sentence?
- And is all this Cabala too, and only to be uſed vvhen People are to be gulled vvith noiſy Nothings? i.e. vvith empty Pleroma's, and ſilent Thunderclaps.
- What part of speech is gull?
- Gull can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce gull?
- Gull is pronounced /ˈɡʌl/.
- What is the plural of gull?
- The plural of gull is gulls.
Words near gull in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gull (page history and authors); Gull (page history and authors); gull (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gull (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gull (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gull (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); gull (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ਡਮਰਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-gull.ogg.
Cite this entry: “gull.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gull. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.