cully

plural cullies

1. archaicA person who is easily tricked or imposed on; a dupe, a gullible person.

   I have learned that […] I am not the first cully whom she has passed upon for a countess.

   1911 March 19 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “SUNDAY, March 9, 1910–1911”, in The Spectator, number 9; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC

   2 more examples

   Yet the rich Cullies may their boaſting ſpare; / They purchaſe but ſophiſticated VVare.

   1678, [John] Dryden, “Epilogue”, in Nat[haniel] Lee, Mithridates King of Pontus, a Tragedy: […], London: […] R[obert] E[veringham] for James Magnes and Rich[ard] Bentley, […], →OCLC

   One [attitude] was a fascination with street-walkers and courtesans as self-confident entrepreneurs, able to outwit their simple cullies.

   2012, Faramerz Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex, Penguin, published 2013, page 158

2. slangA companion.
3. archaichistoricalA male client of a prostitute; a john, a gonk.

   The assumption tends to be the opposite: Whores constantly seek sexual encounters to fulfill their burning desires and also sometimes manage to wheedle gold out of their cullies.

   2006, Laura J. Rosenthal, Infamous Commerce: Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture, Cornell University Press, page 2

present singular third person cullies · participle present cullying · participle past cullied · past cullied

1. To trick, to impose on, to dupe.

plural Cullys · alternative Culley

1. A surname from Irish.