Word.ws English Dictionary

unsully

unsully verb: to make clean (something formerly sullied).

Verb

unsully (third-person singular simple present unsullies, present participle unsullying, simple past and past participle unsullied)

  1. (transitive) To make clean (something formerly sullied).
    • The footage of the interviews available at the Museum of Television and Radio includes the commercials, many of which have the strange subliminal effect of reminding us that we are watching a man try to unsully himself.2007 April 26, Ginia Bellafante, “The Medium, the Message, the Drama of TV’s Q & A”, in New York Times

Forms of unsully

third-person singular presentunsullies
present participleunsullying
past participleunsullied
pastunsullied

Origin of unsully

From un- + sully.

Questions about unsully

What does unsully mean?
Unsully means to make clean (something formerly sullied).
What part of speech is unsully?
Unsully is a verb.
What is the past tense of unsully?
The past tense of unsully is unsullied.

Words near unsully in the dictionary

  1. unsulliable
  2. unsullied
  3. unsulliedly
  4. unsulliedness
  5. unsullies
  6. unsully
  7. unsullying
  8. unsulphated
  9. unsulphonated
  10. unsulphureous
  11. unsulphurized

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unsully (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: “unsully.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unsully. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.