gull

Dictionary of American Words And Phrases by John Russell Bartlett.

1. A cheat; a fraud; a trick.


2. A stupid animal; one easily cheated.--Johnson.

I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it.--Shakspeare.

That paltry story is untrue,

And forged to cheat such gulls as you.--Hudibras.

The author of the "Perils of Pearl Street," in describing one of the swindling auction stores in New York, says:

The auctioneer and Peter Funk were ready to burst with laughter at the prodigious gull they had made of the poor countryman.--P. 53.

3) TO GULL

To trick; to cheat; to deceive.--Johnson. Seldom employed except in familiar conversation.

Yet love these sorc'ries did remove, and move

Thee to gull thine own mother for my love.--Dame.

The Roman people were grossly gulled twice or thrice over, and as often enslaved in one century, and under the same pretence of reformation.--Dryden.

You colony chaps are gulled from year to year.--Sam Slick.

There is no people like unto this people [the Americans], so great yet so little, so shrewd yet so easily gulled, so Christian yet so easily led away from the old standards of truth.--N. Y. Com. Adv. Feb. 24, 1848.

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