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• sally
  sally

  noun

  a sortie of troops from a besieged place upon an enemy.
• Sally
  Sally

  noun

  a female given name, form of Sarah.

sally

¹ American  

[sal-ee] / ˈsæl i /

noun

• sallies
  plural

1. a sortie of troops from a besieged place upon an enemy.

2. a sudden rushing forth or activity.

3. an excursion or trip, usually off the main course.

4. an outburst or flight of passion, fancy, etc..

   a sally of anger.

5. a clever, witty, or fanciful remark.

   Synonyms:

   witticism, quip

6. Carpentry. a projection, as of the end of a rafter beyond the notch by which the rafter is fitted over the wall plate.

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verb (used without object)

• sallies,
  present (3rd person singular)
• sallied,
  past participle,  past
• sallying
  present participle

1. to make a sally, as a body of troops from a besieged place.

2. to set out on a side trip or excursion.

3. to set out briskly or energetically.

4. (of things) to issue forth.

Sally ² American  

[sal-ee] / ˈsæl i /

Or Sallie

noun

1. a female given name, form of Sarah.

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sally ¹ British  

/ ˈsælɪ /

noun

1. a sudden violent excursion, esp by besieged forces to attack the besiegers; sortie

2. a sudden outburst or emergence into action, expression, or emotion

3. an excursion or jaunt

4. a jocular retort

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verb

1. to make a sudden violent excursion

2. (often foll by forth) to go out on an expedition, etc

3. to come, go, or set out in an energetic manner

4. to rush out suddenly

Sally ² British  

/ ˈsælɪ /

noun

1. a member of the Salvation Army

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sally ³ British  

/ ˈsælɪ /

noun

1. the lower part of a bell rope, where it is caught at handstroke, into which coloured wool is woven to make a grip

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• sallier
  noun
• outsally
  verb (used with object)
• unsallying
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• sallies
  plural

Participles

• sallying
  present
• sallied
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• sally
  simple
• sallies
  simple
• have sallied
  perfect
• has sallied
  perfect
• am sallying
  progressive
• are sallying
  progressive
• is sallying
  progressive
• have been sallying
  perfect progressive
• has been sallying
  perfect progressive

Past

• sallied
  simple
• had sallied
  perfect
• was sallying
  progressive
• were sallying
  progressive
• had been sallying
  perfect progressive

Future

• will sally
  simple
• will have sallied
  perfect
• will be sallying
  progressive
• will have been sallying
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of sally

1535–45; < Middle French saillie attack, noun use of feminine past participle of saillir to rush forward < Latin salīre to leap

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Explanation

A sally is a military action, a sudden charge in the direction of the enemy. A sally sometimes has the advantage of taking the opposing army by surprise. When soldiers who have been on the defensive, having retreated to a foxhole or fort, make an abrupt offensive attack on their opponents, it's a sally. Another word for this kind of sally is a sortie. You can also call a sudden funny remark or comeback a sally, especially during a witty, back-and-forth, or bantering kind of conversation. The word comes from the Middle French saillie, "a rushing forth," from the Latin salire, "to leap."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sally Sally sallies sallied sallying

The Uber initiative is the latest sally in a long war pitting plaintiffs and their lawyers against businesses, with legal fees as the battleground.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 16, 2026

“Plainclothes agents have been embedded in transport vans, sally ports, processing areas, and detention cells to gather important tactical intelligence and or information,” a document on Benchwarmer reads.

From Salon ● Jan. 15, 2026

As with the adoption of Casual Fridays, the first sally in the contemporary battle for comfort, there remains confusion as to what exactly constitutes acceptable office attire.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025

Chess, by and large, is a war game played by nonmartial people who would have trouble identifying the business end of an M16 or explaining the difference between an embrasure and a sally port.

From Washington Times ● Sep. 26, 2023

The lawyer’s sally induced guffaws, a courtroom flare-up that Judge Tate’s dour gaze soon extinguished.

From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote

The NBC series, which aired from 1971 to 1977, centered on San Francisco police commissioner Stuart “Mac” McMillan and wife Sally McMillan as they solve a variety of crimes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2026

"Sally Rooney is a writer, not a terrorist. Her books must be available to the public," said the letter signed by such notable figures as Nobel laureates Annie Ernaux and Anne Carson.

From Barron's ● Oct. 21, 2026

The university hired former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates to lead a review of how the school responds to sexual assault cases.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

Sally Phillips, actor and narrator of the newly reissued Winnie-the-Pooh audiobooks, launched the campaign earlier by reading to schoolchildren at a phone box library in Chartham, Kent.

From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026

She did individual searches for Book Scavenger players named Charlie, Sally, and Lucy, but there were hundreds of results.

From "Book Scavenger" by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

She and her brood live high up in the trees, jumping from branch to branch and occasionally making exploratory sallies on the ground.

From Salon ● May 11, 2025

“He’s someone who sallies forth and soldiers on and gets unusual oxygen from the steepest climbs and most vexing situations,” she said.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 17, 2019

The appropriate, time-honored response to the fool’s sallies is to take instruction from them.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 9, 2017

He sallies out on his yacht sometimes to count containers on Miami cargo ships in the harbor, keeping tabs on the comings and goings of freight.

From Slate ● Nov. 29, 2015

Maybe that’s why Jaimito went along with these dangerous sallies.

From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez

I sallied forth, seeking a companion to go with me to see Metallica at a 6th Street club.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 27, 2022

Yet despite a government determined to constrain their ambition and advancement, they sallied forward to become a lawyer and educator, respectively.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 21, 2022

One of these counter-offensives came in the form of an appearance from billionaire Howard Schultz, Starbucks' former chairman, who sallied over to Buffalo to vaguely dissuade pro-union workers from unionizing.

From Salon ● Dec. 25, 2021

The original movie succeeded in wasting Emmanuelle Béart and Kristin Scott Thomas, and it wasn’t really until Ferguson sallied into film No. 5, toting an assassin’s rifle, that progress began to be made.

From The New Yorker ● Jul. 26, 2018

When they sallied forth together the neighborhood emptied suddenly of not only cats but of dogs as well.

From "The Incredible Journey" by Sheila Burnford

All that sallying takes her down some unexpected byways.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026

Finally, some first-timers are valiantly sallying forth — the kind of debuts that’ll be more and more rare as times only get tougher for the restaurant industry under COVID-19.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 10, 2020

But sallying forth without any of them is a recipe for misery.

From The New Yorker ● Feb. 22, 2016

And so I decided to embark on my own immersive tour of those Gilded Age vestiges, sallying forth from my East Village apartment to seek the company of its obsessive modern admirers.

From New York Times ● Feb. 27, 2015

David is in the agreed-on hiding-place; and Jonathan, sallying forth with his servant, shoots his arrows to the place which was to indicate the existence of danger.

From The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Samuel by William Garden Blaikie

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