foul
/faʊl/ adjective, verb, noun
Forms fouler foulest fouls fouling fouled foule
- adjective Covered with, or containing unclean matter; dirty. “This cloth is too foul to use as a duster.”
- adjective (of words or a way of speaking) Obscene, vulgar or abusive. “The rascal spewed forth a series of foul words.”
- adjective Detestable, unpleasant, loathsome. “He has a foul set of friends.”
- adjective Disgusting, repulsive; causing disgust. “This foul food is making me retch.”
- adjective (obsolete) Ugly; homely; poor.
- adjective Unpleasant, stormy or rainy. (of the weather) “Some foul weather is brewing.”
- adjective Dishonest or not conforming to the established rules and customs of a game, conflict, test, etc. “Foul play is not suspected.”
- adjective (nautical) Entangled and therefore restricting free movement, not clear. “We've got a foul anchor.”
- verb (transitive) To make dirty. “to foul the face or hands with mire”
- verb (transitive) To besmirch. “He's fouled his reputation.”
- verb (transitive, intransitive) To obstruct, block, or otherwise interfere with (something), for example by clogging (a drain, gun barrel, chimney, etc) or by being in the way of (a gunshot, etc). “The hair has fouled the drain.”
- verb (transitive, nautical) To entangle. “The kelp has fouled the prop.”
- verb (transitive, basketball, soccer) To make make a play, such as a strong contact with an opposing player in order to gain advantage, that is deemed by the referee to have contravened the rules. “Smith fouled him hard.”
- verb (intransitive, basketball, soccer) To commit a foul. “Smith fouled within the first minute of the quarter.”
- verb (transitive, baseball) To hit outside of the baselines. “Jones fouled the ball off the facing of the upper deck.”
- verb (intransitive, baseball) To hit a ball outside of the baselines. “Jones fouled for strike one.”
- noun (sports) A breach of the rules of a game, especially one involving inappropriate contact with an opposing player in order to gain an advantage; for example, tripping someone up in soccer, or contact of any kind in basketball.
- noun (bowling) A (usually accidental) contact between a bowler and the lane before the bowler has released the ball.
- noun (baseball) A foul ball, a ball which has been hit outside of the base lines. “Jones hit a foul up over the screen.”
- noun (nautical, fishing) A tangle or entanglement.
Synonyms
shameful odious wretched frightful rank befoul dirty besmirch assoil beclart bedaub bedirty imbrue (especially with blood) bedizen befile befilth begrime beray beshit besmear pollute contaminate clog choke off clog up back up congest choke defile maculate
Antonyms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English ffoul, foul, foull, fowel, fowle, fuyle, voul, vul, from Old English fūl (“foul, dirty, unclean, impure, vile, corrupt, rotten, stinking, guilty”), from Proto-West Germanic *fūl, from Proto-Germanic *fūlaz (“foul, rotten”), from Proto-Indo-European *puH- (“foul, rotten”).
Cognate with Central Franconian fuul (“putrid, rotten; lazy, workshy”), Cimbrian baul, vaul (“putrid, rotten”), Dutch vuil (“dirty, foul; lewd, obscene; dishonorable; illegal”), German faul (“foul, putrid, rotten; lazy”), Yiddish פֿױל (foyl, “putrid; lazy”), Danish ful (“nasty, ugly”), Icelandic fúll (“foul, rotten, sullen”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk ful (“clever, sly”), and Swedish ful (“ugly; bad, dirty”), Gothic 𐍆𐌿𐌻𐍃 (fuls, “fetid, foul, putrid”), and through Indo-European, with Latin puter (“decaying, rotten; friable, crumbling”), Greek πύο (pýo), πύον (pýon, “pus”), Albanian fëlliq (“to make dirty, sully”), Latvian pūt (“to rot”), Lithuanian pūti (“to rot”), Armenian փուտ (pʻut, “rottenness”), Persian پوده (pude, “rubbed, worn; foul, rotten; empty, hollow”), Sanskrit पूयति (pūyati, “to become foul; to stink”). More at putrid.
Ancient Greek φαῦλος (phaûlos, “bad”) is a false cognate inasmuch as it is not from the same etymon, instead being cognate to few.
Inherited from Middle English foulen, fulen, from Old English fūlian (“to become foul; rot; decay”), from Proto-West Germanic *fūlēn, from Proto-Germanic *fūlāną (“to rot; decay”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun A bird. [Obs.] Chaucer.
- adjective Covered with, or containing, extraneous matter which is injurious, noxious, offensive, or obstructive; filthy; dirty; not clean; polluted; nasty; defiled; as, a foul cloth; foul hands; a foul chimney; foul air; a ship's bottom is foul when overgrown with barnacles; a gun becomes foul from repeated firing; a well is foul with polluted water.
- adjective Scurrilous; obscene or profane; abusive; as, foul words; foul language.
- verb To make filthy; to defile; to daub; to dirty; to soil; as, to foul the face or hands with mire.
Etymology [See Fowl.]
Etymology [OE. foul, ful, AS. ful; akin to D. vuil, G. faul rotten, OHG. ful, Icel. ful foul, fetid; Dan. fuul, Sw. ful foul, Goth. fuls fetid, Lith. puti to be putrid, L. putere to stink, be putrid, pus pus, Gr. py`on pus, to cause to rot, Skr. puy to stink. *82. Cf. Defile to foul, File to foul, Filth, Pus, Putrid.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “foul”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details