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Etymology and origin of the English word gull

English has two main words spelled gull: the seabird, probably of Celtic origin, and the verb and noun for cheating and its victim, whose origin is uncertain.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

gull1 seabird

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1430 Two Cookery-books
Borrowed from
Welsh gŵylan via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Welsh gŵylan

Etymology

The seabird is inherited from Middle English gulle,[5][6] a word of Celtic origin,[1][7][8][9] probably borrowed from Welsh gŵylan,[10][11][12] which the OED gives only as a possibility, beside Cornish guilan.[13][14] The Celtic words include Breton goelann, the source of French goéland,[13][9][8] and Old Irish foilenn,[13][11] all from Proto-Celtic *voilenno-.[13][3][10][11] The OED compares goelaff (“to weep”).[13] Barnhart considers the English word of uncertain origin, possibly from a Brythonic source,[14] and the American Heritage Dictionary says the same.[6] Partridge, following Malvezin, instead takes it as "the well-beaked bird", comparing gulban (“beak”).[15] It replaced the older word for the bird, mǣw, the source of mew.[3][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A long-winged, web-footed seabird: about 1430, in the Two Cookery-books,[13] which the MED dates before 1450 and quotes from a list of dishes, with gulls beside curlew.[5] Etymonline likewise notes its first use in a cookery book in the early 15th century.[3]

Semantic evolution

The bird's name has changed little in meaning; an allusive use is recorded from 1550, in Crowley.[13] Johnson (1755) defines it simply as a sea-bird.[16] Dialects in Scotland, Northumberland, Norfolk and Devon built names on it for other birds: gull-maw for the greater black-backed gull, gull-teaser for the common tern and gullchaser for the common skua.[17] Collins records the compound gull-wing for an upward-opening car door and a kind of aircraft wing.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 1430 – a long-winged, web-footed seabird, in a cookery book.[13][5]
  • 1550 – used allusively, in Crowley.[13]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Any of many long-winged, web-footed seabirds of the family Laridae, usually grey and white, with a stout, slightly hooked bill: A gull stole the chips from his hand.[1][6][7]

Word family

  • gull-like
  • gull-wing
  • gullery
  • black-backed gull

gull2 to dupe; a dupe

Confidence
Disputed
First attested
1550 before 1550, Hye Way to Spyttel Ho.
Ultimate origin
Latin gula

Etymology

The verb "to dupe" is of uncertain origin,[13][3][18] and two dictionaries call it unknown.[19][20] Merriam-Webster and Etymonline trace it to an obsolete verb "to swallow" and noun "the throat" with this spelling,[1][3] which is from Middle English golle (“throat, gullet”),[1] from Anglo-Norman gule or gole, Old French gola, from Latin gula (“throat”),[2] the source of gullet.[3][10][13] The American Heritage Dictionary goes through golen (“to pretend to swallow”).[6] The OED relates this verb to the noun "dupe" but cannot say which came first; if the verb came first, it may be a transferred use of the verb "to gorge", as with stuff and cram.[13] The noun may in turn be a transferred use of the dialect word for an unfledged bird,[13][15][7][21] which in Middle English had the same form and which the MED already records figuratively for a silly fellow,[5] and which is probably from Old Norse gulr (“yellow”), the colour of its down.[21][3][13] Etymonline thinks that the seabird may also have played a part, as a creature that swallows anything thrown to it,[3] a guess Weekley shares, beside his comparison with Dutch gul (“small cod”).[9] Johnson had derived it from Old French guiller (“to cheat”).[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make a fool of, to cheat: before 1550, in the Hye Way to Spyttel Ho.,[13] or in the 1540s according to Etymonline.[3] The noun, a credulous person, appears in 1594, in Nashe's Terrors of Night.[13][1]

Semantic evolution

If the throat is the starting point, the steps run from "to swallow, guzzle" (1530 to 1674) and "to gorge" (1582 to 1604) to fooling a person, someone "who will swallow anything thrown at him" in Etymonline's phrase.[13][3][1] The noun came to mean the opposite of the victim as well: a trick or false report (1600, in Much Ado about Nothing)[13][16] and, in slang, the trickster himself, which Green's Dictionary records from Jonson in 1598 and the OED from 1699.[22][13] The phrase to grope a gull meant to swindle an unsuspecting person.[13] Between 1612 and 1783 the verb could also mean to cheat someone out of something.[13] Johnson (1755) defines the verb as "to trick; to cheat; to defraud; to deceive", and quotes Twelfth Night for the noun, one "easily cheated".[16] Hoad says that the verb survives in gullible, recorded from the 19th century, apparently a back-formation from gullibility,[10][3][13] with the spelling gullable from 1818.[3]

Timeline

  • 1530 – to swallow, guzzle (obsolete by 1674), in Palsgrave.[13][1]
  • before 1550 – to dupe, to cheat.[13]
  • 1594 – noun, a credulous person, in Nashe.[13][1]
  • 1598 – a trickster, a cheat, in Jonson's Every Man in his Humour.[22]
  • 1600 – a trick, a false report (obsolete by 1668), in Shakespeare.[13]
  • 1612 – to cheat someone out of something (obsolete by 1783), in Jonson's Alchemist.[13]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To deceive or cheat; to make a dupe of: The salesman gulled three pensioners into signing the contract.[1][19][13]
  2. (obsolete, 1530–1674) To guzzle or gulp greedily.[1][13]

Noun

  1. A person who is easily deceived; a simpleton: The confidence man took his latest gull to dinner.[1][19][13]
  2. (obsolete, 1600–1668) A trick or fraud.[1][13][16]
  3. (slang) A trickster or cheat.[13][22][2]

Word family

Usage notes

The dictionaries list several rarer words of this spelling.[13][1][2] One, now in dialect only, is an unfledged bird, especially a gosling, from 1382,[13][1][10] probably a noun use of a Norse-derived adjective gull, yellow, which was used from 1398 to 1669.[13][2] Another, a variant of gool, meant the throat from 1412 to 1663, and then a breach or fissure made by a torrent, from 1553, now obsolete except in dialect,[13][1] with a verb, of water, to wear channels in or wash away, from 1577.[13][1] A third, from 1495 to 1655, was a fish not fully grown.[13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  2. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  6. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  10. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  12. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  15. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  16. ^ a b c d e Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  17. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  18. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  19. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  20. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  21. ^ a b Webster's New World College Dictionary (2014), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  22. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com

Derived terms

Cite this entry

“Gull.” Etymologically, 5 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/gull. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

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