overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

sully.

To soil or stain; to dirty.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈsʌli/General-American, Received-Pronunciation

  1. To soil or stain; to dirty.

    transitive
    He did not wish to sully his hands with gardening.

  2. To corrupt or damage.

    transitive
    She tried to sully her rival’s reputation with a suggestive comment.

  3. To become soiled or tarnished.

    ergative · intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English sulen, sulien (“to become dirty; to defile, pollute, taint”), from Old English sylian (“to soil, pollute; to sully”), from Proto-West Germanic *sulwōn, *sulwijan (“to make dirty; to sully”), from Proto-Indo-European *sūl- (“thick liquid, muck”), perhaps conflated partially with Old French souillier (“to soil”) (modern French souiller) from the same Germanic source. The word is cognate with Danish søle (“to sully”), West Flemish seulewen (“to sully”) (Middle Dutch soluwen (“to sully”)), German sühlen (“to sully”), Old Saxon sulian (“to sully”), Swedish söla (“to sully”). Also compare Middle English sulpen (“to defile, pollute”), Old English solian (“to soil, become defiled, make or become foul”), and see more at soil.

noun/ˈsʌli/General-American, Received-Pronunciation

  1. A blemish.

    obsolete · rare
Where this word comes from

From Middle English sulen, sulien (“to become dirty; to defile, pollute, taint”), from Old English sylian (“to soil, pollute; to sully”), from Proto-West Germanic *sulwōn, *sulwijan (“to make dirty; to sully”), from Proto-Indo-European *sūl- (“thick liquid, muck”), perhaps conflated partially with Old French souillier (“to soil”) (modern French souiller) from the same Germanic source. The word is cognate with Danish søle (“to sully”), West Flemish seulewen (“to sully”) (Middle Dutch soluwen (“to sully”)), German sühlen (“to sully”), Old Saxon sulian (“to sully”), Swedish söla (“to sully”). Also compare Middle English sulpen (“to defile, pollute”), Old English solian (“to soil, become defiled, make or become foul”), and see more at soil.

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

sully has 5 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

sully studiosully workshello, sully

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.