sully
verb (used with object)
to soil, stain, or tarnish.
sully
1 American
[suhl-ee]
/ ˈsʌl i /
verb (used with object)
-
sullies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sullied,
past participle, past
-
sullying
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
sullies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sullied,
past participle, past
-
sullying
present participle
noun
-
sullies
plural
Sully
2
American
[suhl-ee, sy -lee]
/ ˈsʌl i, süˈli /
noun
-
Maximilien de Béthune Duc de, 1560–1641, French statesman.
-
Thomas, 1783–1872, U.S. painter, born in England.
sully
1
British
/ ˈsʌlɪ /
verb
noun
-
a stain
-
the act of sullying
Sully
2
British
/ sylli, ˈsʌlɪ /
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
sullysimple
-
sulliessimple
-
have sulliedperfect
-
has sulliedperfect
-
am sullyingprogressive
-
are sullyingprogressive
-
is sullyingprogressive
-
have been sullyingperfect progressive
-
has been sullyingperfect progressive
Past
-
sulliedsimple
-
had sulliedperfect
-
was sullyingprogressive
-
were sullyingprogressive
-
had been sullyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sully
First recorded in 1585–95; origin uncertain
Explanation
To sully is to attack someone's good name and to try to ruin his reputation. If you spread false rumors that there's chicken stock in the vegetarian entree at Joe's Diner, you would sully Joe's good reputation. Sully can also mean to tarnish or make spotty. It's easy to remember this meaning when you know that sully comes from the Middle French word souiller, meaning, "make dirty." For example, dripping chocolate sauce onto the table will sully your mother's new white tablecloth. Another meaning of sully is to corrupt or cast suspicion on. If an automaker recalls millions of vehicles due to safety problems, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence — in fact, it may sully their brand.
Vocabulary lists containing sully
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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:
Macron almost immediately responded on X: "Shame on those who wanted to sully his memory," he wrote.
From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2025
There are countertop devices that promise to scramble your egg inside the shell, so you never have to sully a whisk again.
From Salon ● Feb. 11, 2025
He feels waiting any longer would just sully his father’s name.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2024
But its imperfections in no way sully the two masterpieces that came before.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2024
I had wanted this for so long, I wouldn’t let fear sully the moment.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
Next came a year of auditions in Australia and the U.S. before I was cast as Jake Sully in “Avatar.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026
Without fail, the miniature version of me would blubber at Sully the polka dot monster reuniting with Boo, and Marlin the clownfish traversing the ocean to find his son.
From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2026
"Fire and Ash" stars Zoe Saldana as Na'vi warrior Neytiri and Sam Worthington as ex-Marine Jake Sully, who must battle a new foe threatening their family's life on the planet Pandora.
From Barron's ● Jan. 4, 2026
I’m particularly fond of how the Na’vi express themselves in hisses and coyote yips and exhale the foreign name Jake Sully like a sneeze.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 16, 2025
He could hear Anton and Sully laughing behind him, knew exactly the look on Harry’s face, even though he couldn’t see it.
From "A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness
"This summit does not dignify anyone, rather, it dirties them, it sullies them. We Latin Americans have to defend ourselves so that they respect us."
From Reuters ● May 19, 2022
Trivializing the suffering of those targeted for extermination by comparing it to modern-day difficulties sullies the memory of the victims.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 31, 2022
Since I began working on the history of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, every time crude oil sullies U.S. waters and beaches, I wait for the same sad, misleading official narrative.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2021
No such fluff sullies the lexicon of Burke’s latest character.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 16, 2019
Slang never ornamented conversation, but it invariably sullies and degrades it.
From Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society A condensed but thorough treatise on etiquette and its usages in America, containing plain and reliable directions for deportment in every situation in life. by Sarah Annie Frost
Plenty of Kobe Bryant fans began griping online about the Heat’s tactics, which they said sullied a legendary evening.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 11, 2026
But he has been tipped to potentially replace Thomas Tuchel as England boss after the World Cup and will not want his reputation sullied by a poor end to the season.
From Barron's ● Feb. 8, 2026
It has a history of bad actors who have sullied crypto’s good name by issuing stablecoins that turned out not to be stable.
From Slate ● May 21, 2025
The incident — which revived memories of a massive 3-million-gallon spill almost 50 years earlier — sullied some of the state’s most pristine beaches and a rare stretch of undeveloped coastline.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2024
I’d never known love so pure, and I was afraid that it would become sullied by my mother.
From "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan
As far back as the 1930s, during the infamous “Bodyline” tour, English bowlers were accused of sullying the game by aiming balls directly at Australian batsmen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025
Maguire and his staff are hippie idealists, wary of sullying their political mission with trivialities like record reviews.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2025
The LTDA's Steve McNamara said joining Uber would be "sullying" the trade.
From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2023
The Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène rendered myth a visual map that rescued the African past from the sullying grasp of empire.
From New York Times ● Sep. 8, 2023
When he plunged through, he would almost drag the reputations of the cyclotron and the Rad Lab down with him, sullying the perceived promise of Big Science.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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.
