sully
Syllables: sul·ly/ˈsʌli/UK/ˈsʌli/
sully verb: to soil or stain; to dirty.
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Verb
sully (third-person singular simple present sullies, present participle sullying, simple past and past participle sullied)
- To soil or stain; to dirty.
- He did not wish to sully his hands with gardening.
- THoſe Ills your Anceſtors have done, / Romans, are now become your own ; / And they will coſt you dear, / Unleſs you ſoon repair / The falling Temples which the Gods provoke, / And Statues ſully’d yet with Sacrilegious Smoke.1672, The Earl of Roscommon [Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon], “The Sixth Ode, of the Third Book of Horace”, in Poems by the Earl of Roscomon, London: J[acob] Tonson, published 1717, page...
- To corrupt or damage.
- She tried to sully her rival’s reputation with a suggestive comment.
- Ken Starr would later conclude that it was a mistake for him to expand into the Monica Lewinsky matter, largely because of the disastrous impact it would have on his Whitewater/Madison investigation and in sullying his otherwise sterling professional reputation.2010, Ken Gormley, “One Nation Divided”, in The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, New York, N.Y.: Crown Publishers, →ISBN, page 431
- To become soiled or tarnished.
- [G]old bears the fire, which ſilver doth not: but that is an excellency in nature, but it is nothing at all in uſe; for any dignity in uſe I know none, but that ſilvering will ſully and canker more than gilding; […]1730, Francis Bacon, “The Lord Bacon’s Questions, with Dr. Meverel’s Solutions, Concerning the Compounding, Incorporating, or Union of Metals or Minerals; which Subject is the First Letter of His...
Noun
sully (plural sullies)
- A blemish.
- You laying these ſlight ſallies on my ſonne, / As t'were a thing a little ſoyld with working, […]c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604...
- After all, it must be confessed, that a noble and triumphant merit often breaks through and dissipates these little spots and sullies in its reputation; but if, by a mistaken pursuit after fame, or through human infirmity any false step be made in the more momentous concerns of life, the whole...1712 January 3 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “SUNDAY, December 24, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 256; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a...
Proper noun capitalized: Sully
Sully (countable and uncountable, plural Sullys or Sullies)
- A surname.
- A diminutive of the male given name Sullivan.
- A coastal village in the Vale of Glamorgan borough county borough, Wales (OS grid ref ST1568).
- A commune in Saône-et-Loire department, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, France.
- A commune in Oise department, Hauts-de-France, France.
- A commune in Calvados department, Normandy, France.
- A minor city in Jasper County, Iowa, United States.
- An unincorporated community in Randolph County, West Virginia, United States.
- Ellipsis of Sully County.
Synonyms of sully
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of sully
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | sullies |
| present participle | sullying |
| past participle | sullied |
| past | sullied |
| alternative form | sullow |
| Noun | |
| plural | sullies |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Sullys |
| plural | Sullies |
Origin of sully
From Middle English sulen, sulien (“to become dirty; to defile, pollute, taint”), from Old English sylian (“to soil, pollute; to sully”), from Proto-West Germanic *sulwōn, *sulwijan (“to make dirty; to sully”), from Proto-Indo-European *sūl- (“thick liquid, muck”), perhaps conflated partially with Old French souillier (“to soil”) (modern French souiller) from the same Germanic source. The word is cognate with Danish søle (“to sully”), West Flemish seulewen (“to sully”) (Middle Dutch soluwen (“to sully”)), German sühlen (“to sully”), Old Saxon sulian (“to sully”), Swedish söla (“to sully”). Also compare Middle English sulpen (“to defile, pollute”), Old English solian (“to soil, become defiled, make or become foul”), and see more at soil.
Words formed from sully
Words that rhyme with sully
Questions about sully
- What does sully mean?
- Sully means to soil or stain; to dirty.
- What part of speech is sully?
- Sully can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce sully?
- Sully is pronounced /ˈsʌli/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of sully?
- The past tense of sully is sullied.
Words near sully in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sully (page history and authors); Sully (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-sully.ogg, en-au-sully.ogg.
Cite this entry: “sully.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sully. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.