cully

To trick, to impose on, to dupe.

Noun

  1. 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]...
    • 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,...
    • 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...
  2. A companion.
  3. 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...

Origin

Uncertain. Short for cullion? Compare Irish cuallaí (“companion”)

Forms

cullies

Derived

cullyism

Verb

  1. To trick, to impose on, to dupe.

Forms

cullies cullying cullied