Collying

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Intimidating or browbeating someone through threats or aggressive behavior
2. Pressuring or bullying a person into submission through menacing conduct
3. Coercing someone through intimidation and threatening actions or words

Etymology: "Collying" is the present participle of "colly," which in its sense of blackening or smudging with coal dust is an old word meaning "to make black." The sense of pressuring or bullying someone through menace comes from a separate verb, which goes back to the Middle English "colien," a variant of "colwen." That verb is related to the Old English "colgian," and the older root connects it to the idea of collow, a word for blackening with soot or charcoal. The verb "colly" is thus a case where two related but distinct meanings grew from the same dark, sooty root. The blackening sense is the older concrete one, and the menacing sense developed from it at some point in the Middle English period, when "colwen" was attested.