Meaning

noun United States painter (born in England) of portraits and historical scenes (1783-1872)

noun French statesman (1560-1641)

verb place under suspicion or cast doubt upon

originFrom Middle English sulen, sulien (“to become dirty; to defile, pollute, taint”), from Old English sylian (“to soil, pollute; to sully”), from Proto-West Germanic *sulwōn, *sulwijan (“to make dirty; to sully”), from Proto-Indo-European *sūl- (“thick liquid, muck”), perhaps conflated partially with Old French souillier (“to soil”) (modern French souiller) from the same Germanic source. The word is…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0