sullied

[ suhl-eed ]

adjective

1. soiled, stained, or tarnished:

   He was above the sullied reputations of some party members, who were thought to be corrupt, greedy, and arrogant.

   To a lover of reading, how beautiful are the sullied pages and worn-out appearance of a well-used book!

verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of sully.

Other Words From

• un·sul·lied adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of sullied¹

sully + -ed ²( def )

Example Sentences

On board is Sully, who sacrificed her marriage and left her daughter behind in order to become one of the first humans to travel so far in our Solar System.

From Ars Technica

Straight couples will see that their own marriages were somehow not sullied after all.

From The Daily Beast

Similarly, clandestine foreign operations have sullied the civilian courts.

From The Daily Beast

This modern autocrat suckles from your own breast and buries you beneath a mountain of sullied nappies.

From The Daily Beast

Suppose McCain had been voted out of office in 1992 after the Keating Five savings-and-loan scandal sullied his reputation.

From The Daily Beast

This was very exceptional in railway history, for British and Irish railways possess a record that has rarely been sullied.

From Project Gutenberg

“Awful,” “horrid,” and “lovely” are good words; but they have been sullied by common use.

From Project Gutenberg

The same treachery which sullied the reminiscences of Ghent, characterised the procedure of the minister towards England in 1846.

From Project Gutenberg

Pomp grinned, and broke off some thick leaves to carefully clean the sullied end, chuckling merrily the while.

From Project Gutenberg

Even the memory of his grand passion was now corrupted, sullied, debased.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• contaminated
• crummy
• disheveled
• dusty
• filthy
• greasy
• grimy
• messy
• muddy
• murky
• nasty
• polluted
• sloppy
• stained
• unkempt