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rty; to spot; to tarnish; to stain; to darken; -- used literally and figuratively; as, to sully a sword; to sully a person's reputation. Statues sullied yet with sacrilegious smoke. Roscommon. No spots to sully the brightness of this solemnity. Atterbury.

To stain; to obscure; to sully; to disgrace; to cloud with infamy. For so exceeding shone his glistring ray, That Phattaint. Spenser. Lest she with blame her honor should attaint. Spenser.

To smirch or soil; to discolor; to obscure. Hence: To dishonor; to sully. Shak.

To make black; to blacken; to soil; to sully. They have their teeth blacked, both men and women, for they say a dog hath his teeth white, therefore they will black theirs. Hakluyt. Sins which black thy soul. J. Fletcher.

To defame; to sully, as reputation; to make infamous; as, vice blackens the character.

To sully; to stain; to blemish, as reputation. Sarcasms may eclipse thine own, But can not blur my lost renown. Hudibras.

a of several species of moths and butterfies, which attacks cabbages. The most common is usully the larva of a white butterfly. See Cabbage Butterfly, above. The cabbage cutworms, which eat off the stalks or young plants during the night, are the larvæ of several species of moths, of the genus Agrotis. See Cutworm. --…

To waste away, grow rusty, or be oxidized, as a mineral. [Obs.] Silvering will sully and canker more than gliding. Bacom.

To blacken; to sully; to stain; to tarnish; to damage; -- esp. used of reputation or character. I would not be a stander-by to hear My sovereign mistress clouded so, without My present vengeance taken. Shak.

To soil, stain, or corrupt by contact; to tarnish; to sully; to taint; to pollute; to defile. Shall we now Contaminate our figures with base bribes Shak. I would neither have simplicity imposed upon, nor virtue contaminated. Goldsmith.

use their new law Bacause they durst not, because they could not. Macaulay. Who dared to sully her sweet love with suspicion. Thackeray. The tie of party was stronger than the tie of blood, because a partisan was more ready to dare without asking why. Jowett (Thu

To make foul; to sully; to tarnish. I must not think there are Evils enough to darken all his goodness. Shak.

To soil or sully; to tarnish, as reputation; to taint. He is . . . among the greatest prelates of this age, however his character may be defiled by . . . dirty hands. Swift.

Fig.: To blacken or sully; to defame. [R.] To denigrate the memory of Voltaire. Morley.

To tarnish; to sully; to scandalize; -- said of reputation, character, etc.

To tinge with a different color from the natural or proper one; to stain; to discolor; to sully; to tarnish; to defile; -- used chiefly in poetry. "Distained with dirt and blood." Spenser. [She] hath . . . distained her honorable blood. Spenser. The worthiness of praise distains his worth. Shak.

To render dim or obscure; to sully; to tarnish. "Dulls the mirror." Bacon.

To obscure, darken, or extinguish the beauty, luster, honor, etc., of; to sully; to cloud; to throw into the shade by surpassing. "His eclipsed state." Dryden. My joy of liberty is half eclipsed. Shak.

Foul matter; dirt, rubbed in; sullying blackness, deeply ingrained.

The doctrine that there is a tendency throughout nature toward improvement. J. Sully.