gullible means easily deceived or duped; naive, easily cheated or fooled. It carries an Arena rating of 1467, earned across 7 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, gullible ranks #1,291 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,687 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #3,066 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #4,134 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound.
gullible is pronounced /ˈɡʌlɪbl̩/.
Why “gullible” is a great word
Easily deceived or duped; naive and quick to believe something that is not true. Of uncertain origin, it likely blends the verb 'gull'—to trick—with the suffix '-ible,' or perhaps stems from an unrecorded Middle English word related to 'goll' (an unfledged bird, silly fellow); first attested in the 1820s. Unlike 'credulous,' which implies a passive, general readiness to believe, or 'naive,' which suggests simple inexperience, 'gullible' implies an active, specific vulnerability to the practiced con. It is the tourist buying a 'genuine' Roman coin from a man with a fast smile, the reader forwarding an email that promises inherited millions, the earnest nod to a stranger's outlandish story—the quiet tragedy of an open door in a world built with locks.
Etymology
Origin uncertain. Either from gull (“to dupe, trick, fool”) + -ible; or alternatively from Middle English gole, goll, gol (“an unfledged bird, silly fellow”), perhaps from Old Norse gulr (“yellow, pale”), from the hue of its down.
adj
- Easily deceived or duped; naive, easily cheated or fooled.e.g.“Andrew is so gullible, the way he still believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman at the age of fourteen.”
noun
- A gullible person; someone easily fooled or tricked.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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