Thou hast not collied thy face enough, stinkard1601, Ben Jonson, Poetaster or The Arraignment: […], London: […] [R. Bradock] for M[atthew] L[ownes] […], published 1602, →OCLC, Act I, scene iv:
Brief as the lighting in the collied night.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
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Not as I could find i' my heart to let him stay i' the coal-hole more nor a minute, but it was enough to colly him all over. . . .1861, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XIV, in Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC:
colly
noun
Etymology From Middle English *colien, variant of *colwen (attested in Middle English colwed and colwinge), from Old English *colgian. More at collow.
besmeared with soot , colly1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:
Alternative, Dated Alternative spelling of collie.
Can a Whig lick the feet o' the tyrant wha usurps oor Lord's throne, and accept o' ane indulgence frae him, hurled to him as a bane to a colly dog, binding himself to think as he thinks, and to preach as he wulls it; and to flatter tyranny in church and state, to win a paltry boon!1833, William Craig Brownlee, The Whigs of Scotland: Or, The Last of the Stuarts, vol. 2, page 30:
On the moors and mountains of Scotland the shepherd sends out his colly with the sheep, far out of his sight, conscious that when he sets out to look for them, they will be found herded safely together.1847, Thomas Miller, The Boy's Country Book, page 80:
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Colly dog's early training is a rude one, but I think that it is mutual, and that the shepherd picks up a good deal of dog during the process.1861, Francis Galton, Vacation Tourists and Notes of Travel in 1860, page 139: