Word.ws English Dictionary

selly

/ˈsɛli/

selly adjective: rare; wonderful; admirable.

Adjective

selly (comparative sellier or more selly, superlative selliest or most selly)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland, UK, dialectal) Rare; wonderful; admirable

Adverb

selly (comparative sellier or more selly, superlative selliest or most selly)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland, UK, dialectal) Wonderfully, wondrously.
    • His brother was […] selly sick and sore unsound.1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “(please specify the chapter)”, in [Le Morte Darthur], (please specify the book number), [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC...

Noun

selly (plural sellies)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland, UK, dialectal) A marvel; wonder; something wonderful or rare
    • The line is a masterstroke of noncommitment, for the event is a "selly" in the sight of some unidentified readers.1995, Robert J. Blanch, Julian N. Wasserman, From Pearl to Gawain

Synonyms of selly

Forms of selly

Adjective
comparativesellier
comparativemore selly
superlativeselliest
superlativemost selly
alternative formsilly
alternative formsillie
Adverb
comparativesellier
comparativemore selly
superlativeselliest
superlativemost selly
Noun
pluralsellies

Origin of selly

From Middle English selly, selly, sellich, from Old English sellīċ, seldlīċ (“rare, strange, wondrous”), from Proto-West Germanic *seldalīk, from Proto-Germanic *seldalīkaz, equivalent to seld + -ly. Cognate with Scots selly, silly (“approved, good, worthy”), Old Saxon seldlīk (“rare, wonderful”), Gothic 𐍃𐌹𐌻𐌳𐌰𐌻𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃 (sildaleiks, “wonderful”).

Phrases with selly

Words that rhyme with selly

15 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about selly

What does selly mean?
Selly means rare; wonderful; admirable.
What part of speech is selly?
Selly can be an adjective, an adverb or a noun.
How do you pronounce selly?
Selly is pronounced /ˈsɛli/.

Words near selly in the dictionary

  1. sellthrough
  2. sellup
  3. sellups
  4. Sellwood
  5. Sellwoods
  6. selly
  7. Selly Oak
  8. Selly Park
  9. Sellye
  10. sellæ turcicæ
  11. SELM

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: selly (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.

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Cite this entry: “selly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/selly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.