colly

comparative collier · superlative colliest

1. UKdialectalBlack as coal.

   four colly birds

   1780, unknown author, Twelve Days of Christmas

present singular third person collies · participle present collying · participle past collied · past collied · alternative kelly

1. archaictransitiveTo make black, as with coal.

   Brief as the lighting in the collied night.

   c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

   2 more examples

   Thou hast not collied thy face enough, stinkard

   1601, Ben Jonson, Poetaster or The Arraignment: […], London: […] [R. Bradock] for M[atthew] L[ownes] […], published 1602, →OCLC, Act I, scene iv

   Not as I could find i' my heart to let him stay i' the coal-hole more nor a minute, but it was enough to colly him all over. . . .

   1861, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XIV, in Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC

plural collies · alternative kelly

1. UKdialectalSoot.

   besmeared with soot , colly

   1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC

2. UKdialectalA blackbird
3. alternativedatedAlternative spelling of collie.

   Colly dog's early training is a rude one, but I think that it is mutual, and that the shepherd picks up a good deal of dog during the process.

   1861, Francis Galton, Vacation Tourists and Notes of Travel in 1860, page 139

   2 more examples

   Can a Whig lick the feet o' the tyrant wha usurps oor Lord's throne, and accept o' ane indulgence frae him, hurled to him as a bane to a colly dog, binding himself to think as he thinks, and to preach as he wulls it; and to flatter tyranny in church and state, to win a paltry boon!

   1833, William Craig Brownlee, The Whigs of Scotland: Or, The Last of the Stuarts, vol. 2, page 30

   On the moors and mountains of Scotland the shepherd sends out his colly with the sheep, far out of his sight, conscious that when he sets out to look for them, they will be found herded safely together.

   1847, Thomas Miller, The Boy's Country Book, page 80