gull

CEFRC2

/ˈɡʌl/

noun · verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A common seabird with long wings and a loud call.

  2. 02

    verb

    To trick or deceive someone.

Examples

  • A beautiful gull flies over the sea.

  • The sea gull glided on the wind.

At a glance

Sits at C2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
4

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A cheating trick; a fraud.

  2. Any of various pierid butterflies of the genus Cepora.

  3. A seabird of the genus Larus or of the subfamily Larinae.

More examples

In context

  • The tide was out, and we drew up amid the strong bracing smell of seaweed, with gulls screeching, wheeling around, and gliding on the wind.

  • Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight—how to get from shore to food and back again.[…]For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.

  • O, but to ha' gulled him / Had been a mastery.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

A white blank with grey wings flew over the beach.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

Inherited from Middle English gulle, from a Brythonic language (compare Breton gouelan, Welsh gwylan, and Cornish golan), from Proto-Brythonic *gwuɨlann, from Proto-Celtic *weilannā (“seagull”). Cognate with Old Irish foílenn, Scottish Gaelic faoileag. Compare French goéland, a borrowing from Breton. Eclipsed Middle English lare (borrowed from Latin larus) and Middle English mewe (from Old English mæw).