Verb
people that sully our state parks with their trash
a once-gleaming marble interior sullied by decades of exposure to cigarette smoke
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Verb
With Taylor sullied publicly and a leadership void atop the department, Luck became the face of Stanford athletics and the sole possessor of the authority necessary to salvage the football program.—Jon Wilner, Mercury News, 27 Mar. 2025 However, his legacy has been sullied by decades of financial disputes and a barrage lawsuits from artists and creditors.—Daniel Cassady, ARTnews.com, 14 Jan. 2025 Tom Pendergast had been convicted of income tax evasion in 1939, and Truman’s reputation was sullied by association.—Joseph Thorndike, Forbes, 15 Dec. 2024 What started as a general lack of trust for a cloud environment, laden with security concerns, has morphed into significant increase in cloud adoption only to be sullied by the all-in cost of cloud.—Paige Francis, Forbes, 8 Mar. 2025 See All Example Sentences for sully
Word History
Etymology
Verb
Middle English *sullien, probably alteration (influenced by Anglo-French suillier, soiller to soil) of sulen to soil, from Old English sylian
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