Definition of "colly"

four colly birds

1780, unknown author, Twelve Days of Christmas

Thou hast not collied thy face enough, stinkard

1601, Ben Jonson, Poetaster or The Arraignment: […], London: […] [R. Bradock] for M[atthew] L[ownes] […], published 1602, Act I, scene iv

Brief as the lighting in the collied night.

c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]

Not as I could find i' my heart to let him stay i' the coal-hole more nor a minute, but it was enough to colly him all over. .

1861, George Eliot, “Chapter 14”, in Silas Marner

besmeared with soot , colly

1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps

Can a Whig lick the feet o' the tyrant wha usurps oor Lord's throne, and accept o' ane indulgence frae him, hurled to him as a bane to a colly dog, binding himself to think as he thinks, and to preach as he wulls it; and to flatter tyranny in church and state, to win a paltry boon!

1833, William Craig Brownlee, The Whigs of Scotland: Or, The Last of the Stuarts, vol. 2‎, page 30

On the moors and mountains of Scotland the shepherd sends out his colly with the sheep, far out of his sight, conscious that when he sets out to look for them, they will be found herded safely together.

1847, Thomas Miller, The Boy's Country Book‎, page 80

Colly dog's early training is a rude one, but I think that it is mutual, and that the shepherd picks up a good deal of dog during the process.

1861, Francis Galton, Vacation Tourists and Notes of Travel in 1860‎, page 139