Sully

 WORD OF THE DAY

sully / verb / SUL-ee

Definition
1a: to make soiled or tarnished
1b: defile
2: soil, stain

Examples
"When she began living next to the beach in Barcelona, New Yorker Elizabeth Sherr was distressed to see all the cigarette butts and litter sullying its golden sand. The 24-year-old began a campaign to pick up the rubbish piece by piece, posting videos on TikTok encouraging others to get involved."
— Graham Keeley, i (inews.co.uk), 10 June 2021

Anyway, what would be the point of selling people on a safe space just to sully it with dangers?
— Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 8 Nov. 2021

Did You Know?
The spelling of sully has shifted several times since it was sylian in Old-English, but its meaning has remained essentially the same: "to soil."
If you're looking for other words that mean "to soil," you can try out befoul, besmirch, blacken, foul, grime, stain, or simply dirty.
You might wonder if the English word sullen (meaning "gloomy or morose") is a relative of sully, and the answer is no.
Sullen traces back by way of Anglo- and Old French to Latin solus, meaning "alone."