Word.ws English Dictionary

shark-gull

shark-gull noun: a confidence trickster; a person who preys on simpletons.

Noun

shark-gull (plural shark-gulls)

  1. (obsolete) A confidence trickster; a person who preys on simpletons.
    • Complainest thou of bad doings, when there are harlots of all trades, and knaves of all languages? Knowest thou not that sin may be committed either in French, Dutch, Italian, or Spanish, and all after the English fashion? But thou excusest the negligence of thy practice by the last summer's...1604, Thomas Middleton, The Black Book; republished in The Works of Thomas Middleton, volume 5, London: Edward Lumley, 1840, page 524
    Synonyms:
    conman, sharker

Synonyms of shark-gull

Forms of shark-gull

pluralshark-gulls

Origin of shark-gull

From shark (“to swindle; to trick”) + gull (“dupe; mark; sucker”).

Questions about shark-gull

What does shark-gull mean?
Shark-gull means a confidence trickster; a person who preys on simpletons.
What part of speech is shark-gull?
Shark-gull is a noun.
What is the plural of shark-gull?
The plural of shark-gull is shark-gulls.

Words near shark-gull in the dictionary

  1. shark-fin
  2. shark-fin soup
  3. shark-finned
  4. shark-fins
  5. shark-flesh
  6. shark-gull
  7. shark-gulls
  8. shark-infested
  9. shark-jumping
  10. sharka
  11. sharkbite

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shark-gull (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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