colly
Americanverb (used with object)
noun
noun
verb
Etymology
Origin of colly
1555–65; variant of collow (v.), Middle English colwen, derivative of Old English col coal; see -y 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The debate raises the question: If colly was the original term, and if it referred to coal, shouldn’t the song be sung, “four coally birds?”
From Washington Post ● Dec. 21, 2016
“As colly passed out of common usage among English-language speakers, it’s no surprise that Austin’s similar-sounding alternative calling became more popular,” he wrote.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 21, 2016
“To think, all this time I’ve argued with my family that the correct word should be colly, and I wasn’t even pronouncing it properly!” he wrote.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 21, 2016
It is accepted that the original gift was actually four colly birds, meaning birds that were black.
From BBC ● Dec. 25, 2013
The fourth day of Christmas, My true love sent to me Four colly birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves, and A partridge in a pear tree.
From The Nursery Rhymes of England by Various
The moment was as “brief as the lightning in the collied night,” as Shakespeare might have said, but it changed McFarland’s life forever.
From BusinessWeek ● Nov. 29, 2012
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Bright as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say "Behold!"
From The Zankiwank and The Bletherwitch An Original Fantastic Fairy Extravaganza by Fitzgerald, S. J. Adair
How suggestive this, of the ephemeral fame of even a great lawyer: "Swift as shadow, short as any dream Brief as the lightning in the collied night."
From Something of Men I Have Known With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective by Stevenson, Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing)
Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That in a spleen enfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say—Behold!
From Notes and Queries, Number 21, March 23, 1850 by Various
There was little sympathy in feeling, although there might have been in choice; and so their loves passed "Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night."
From William Shakespeare as he lived. An Historical Tale by Curling, Henry
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
