gullible
adjective
Did you know?
“Let a gull steal my fries once, shame on the gull; let a gull steal my fries twice, shame on me.” So goes the classic, oft-repeated seaside maxim reminding people to guard against being gullible. Okay, that’s not really how the old saw goes, but on the off chance that you believed our little trick, you yourself were, however briefly, gullible—that is, “easily duped.” The adjective gullible grew out of the older verb gull, meaning “to deceive or take advantage of.” (That gull originally meant “to guzzle or gulp greedily,” and comes from an even older gull meaning “throat, gullet.”) Another relative is the noun gull, referring to a person who is easy to cheat. However, no matter how much the seabirds we call gulls love to pilfer our potatoes, that avian gull has no relation, and is instead of Celtic origin—we promise.
Synonyms
Examples of gullible in a Sentence
Peter Zablocki, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Feb. 2025
But this young man has shown me how others see me now: old, gullible, vulnerable.
—Fabiola Santiago, Miami Herald, 30 Jan. 2025
But what these gullible pundits don’t understand is that Trump’s negotiating style is to start with a high figure to extract the maximum leverage.
—Brian Foley, Forbes, 16 Jan. 2025
In an interview with Greg Gutfeld on Fox News in October, Kennedy suggested weight loss drugs were being pushed on to gullible Americans by foreign pharmaceutical companies that wouldn’t even market the drugs in their home countries.
—Nathaniel Weixel, The Hill, 30 Dec. 2024
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Dictionary Entries Near gullible
Cite this Entry
“Gullible.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gullible. Accessed 11 Feb. 2025.
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