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gullible

adj, noun — 2 senses

gullible

adj

US, UK /ˈɡʌlɪbl̩/

Etymology Origin uncertain. Either from gull (“to dupe, trick, fool”) + -ible; or alternatively from Middle English gole, goll, gol (“an unfledged bird, silly fellow”), perhaps from Old Norse gulr (“yellow, pale”), from the hue of its down.

1

Easily deceived or duped; naive, easily cheated or fooled.

  • Andrew is so gullible, the way he still believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman at the age of fourteen.
Synonyms
gullible, credulous, green, naive, fleeceable, naif, born yesterday, fresh off the boat, wide-eyed
Derived terms
gullibility, gullibleness, gullibly, nongullible
Hypernyms
foolish

gullible

noun

Etymology Origin uncertain. Either from gull (“to dupe, trick, fool”) + -ible; or alternatively from Middle English gole, goll, gol (“an unfledged bird, silly fellow”), perhaps from Old Norse gulr (“yellow, pale”), from the hue of its down.

1

A gullible person; someone easily fooled or tricked.

  • They pictured to these gullibles the unearthly delights that were to be enjoyed as servants of the Spaniards. But such tricks could not last, for Cuba was too close to Saint Domingue, and news of the real conditions leaked across the windward passage and were bruited about.1991, Guy Endore, Babouk: Voices of Resistance, page 70:
  • Spurious accounts that snare the gullible are readily available. Skeptical treatments are much harder to find.1995, Carl Sagan, “The Most Precious Thing”, in The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1st edition, New York: Random House, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 5:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.