cully
verbEtymology Uncertain. Short for cullion? Compare Irish cuallaí (“companion”)
1
To trick, to impose on, to dupe.
cully
nounUK, US /ˈkʌli/
Etymology Uncertain. Short for cullion? Compare Irish cuallaí (“companion”)
1
Archaic A person who is easily tricked or imposed on; a dupe, a gullible person.
- Yet the rich Cullies may their boaſting ſpare; / They purchaſe but ſophiſticated VVare.1678, [John] Dryden, “Epilogue”, in Nat[haniel] Lee, Mithridates King of Pontus, a Tragedy: […], London: […] R[obert] E[veringham] for James Magnes and Rich[ard] Bentley, […], →OCLC:
- I have learned that […] I am not the first cully whom she has passed upon for a countess.1911 March 19 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “SUNDAY, March 9, 1910–1911”, in The Spectator, number 9; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:
1 more example
- One [attitude] was a fascination with street-walkers and courtesans as self-confident entrepreneurs, able to outwit their simple cullies.2012, Faramerz Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex, Penguin, published 2013, page 158:
2
Slang A companion.
3
Archaic, Historical A male client of a prostitute; a john, a gonk.
- The assumption tends to be the opposite: Whores constantly seek sexual encounters to fulfill their burning desires and also sometimes manage to wheedle gold out of their cullies.2006, Laura J. Rosenthal, Infamous Commerce: Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture, Cornell University Press, page 2:
- Derived terms
- cullyism