cully

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

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌli/

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• Rhymes: -ʌli

cully (plural cullies)

1. (archaic) A person who is easily tricked or imposed on; a dupe, a gullible person.
   • 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:

     Yet the rich Cullies may their boaſting ſpare; / They purchaſe but ſophiſticated VVare.

   • 1911 March 20 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “MONDAY, 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:

     I have learned that […] I am not the first cully whom she has passed upon for a countess.

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 2012, Faramerz Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex, Penguin, published 2013, page 158:

     One [attitude] was a fascination with street-walkers and courtesans as self-confident entrepreneurs, able to outwit their simple cullies.

2. (slang) A companion.
3. (historical, archaic) A male client of a prostitute; a john, a gonk.
   • 2006, Laura J. Rosenthal, Infamous Commerce: Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture, Cornell University Press, page 2:

     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.

cully (third-person singular simple present cullies, present participle cullying, simple past and past participle cullied)

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