What does collying mean?
Collying is a largely historical English verb meaning to blacken or soil something, particularly with soot or coal dust. It derives from 'colly,' a dialectal word rooted in the Old English 'col,' meaning coal, which also gave us 'collier' and 'colliery.' In everyday use, especially in British and Scottish coal-mining regions, collying described the inevitable grime that settled on workers, laundry, and walls wherever coal was burned or mined. The word achieved lasting fame through Shakespeare, who used 'collied' figuratively in A Midsummer Night's Dream to describe darkness falling over the night sky. Though now rare in ordinary conversation, collying survives as a vivid reminder of how deeply coal shaped daily life and language in industrial Britain, offering writers a precise and evocative term for being begrimed by smoke, soot, or dirt.
verb (present participle of 'colly')The act of blackening or smudging something, especially with soot, coal dust, or grime; to make dirty or begrime.
- To blacken, soil, or smudge with soot, coal dust, or dirt (dialectal).
- (Of Shakespeare's usage) To darken or cloud, as in 'Midsummer Night's Dream': 'the moon... collied night.'
"The miners came home collying their faces with coal dust after a long shift underground."
"The chimney sweep's hands were permanently collied from years of work in the flues."
"Shakespeare wrote that the moon's beams would not 'colly' the night — an early poetic use meaning to darken."
Before the age of central heating, whole families in coal-mining towns spent their days literally collying themselves black just by living near the pithead.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of collying
Collying is the present participle of 'colly,' a verb of Middle English origin derived from 'col,' the Old English word for coal. The same root produced 'collier' (a coal miner or coal ship) and 'colliery' (a coal mine), making the family a direct linguistic record of Britain's coal heritage. The verb appears in dialect use for centuries, and its best-known literary occurrence is in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, where 'collied' describes the darkening of night.
Related word forms
How collying is actually used
Chiefly a historical or regional (British/Scottish) term, rarely used in modern standard English outside literary quotation. Its most famous appearance is Shakespearean, where it carries a poetic sense of darkening rather than literal soiling.
Easily confused with collying
'Culling' means selecting or removing items or animals from a group, while 'collying' means blackening or soiling with grime.