verb
- to blacken or soil with coal dust or soot
Usage: archaic; literary
Examples
- The chimney smoke would colly the white walls of the cottage.
- Factory soot began to colly the once-pristine buildings downtown.
- In Shakespeare's *A Midsummer Night's Dream*, the moon's face is said to be collied by clouds.
- The miners' faces were collied black after a long day underground.
- Centuries of industrial pollution had collied the stone facades of the old cathedral.