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Foul   /faʊl/   Listen
adjective
Foul  adj.  (compar. fouler; superl. foulest)  
1.
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. "My face is foul with weeping."
2.
Scurrilous; obscene or profane; abusive; as, foul words; foul language.
3.
Hateful; detestable; shameful; odious; wretched. "The foul with Sycorax." "Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?"
4.
Loathsome; disgusting; as, a foul disease.
5.
Ugly; homely; poor. (Obs.) "Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares."
6.
Not favorable; unpropitious; not fair or advantageous; as, a foul wind; a foul road; cloudy or rainy; stormy; not fair; said of the weather, sky, etc. "So foul a sky clears not without a storm."
7.
Not conformed to the established rules and customs of a game, conflict, test, etc.; unfair; dishonest; dishonorable; cheating; as, foul play.
8.
Having freedom of motion interfered with by collision or entanglement; entangled; opposed to clear; as, a rope or cable may get foul while paying it out.
Foul anchor. (Naut.) See under Anchor.
Foul ball (Baseball), a ball that first strikes the ground outside of the foul ball lines, or rolls outside of certain limits.
Foul ball lines (Baseball), lines from the home base, through the first and third bases, to the boundary of the field.
Foul berth (Naut.), a berth in which a ship is in danger of fouling another vesel.
Foul bill, or Foul bill of health, a certificate, duly authenticated, that a ship has come from a place where a contagious disorder prevails, or that some of the crew are infected.
Foul copy, a rough draught, with erasures and corrections; opposed to fair or clean copy. "Some writers boast of negligence, and others would be ashamed to show their foul copies."
Foul proof, an uncorrected proof; a proof containing an excessive quantity of errors.
Foul strike (Baseball), a strike by the batsman when any part of his person is outside of the lines of his position.
To fall foul, to fall out; to quarrel. (Obs.) "If they be any ways offended, they fall foul."
To fall foul of or To run foul of. See under Fall.
To make foul water, to sail in such shallow water that the ship's keel stirs the mud at the bottom.


noun
Foul  n.  A bird. (Obs.)


Foul  n.  
1.
An entanglement; a collision, as in a boat race.
2.
(Baseball) See Foul ball, under Foul, a.
3.
In various games or sports, an act done contrary to the rules; a foul stroke, hit, play, or the like.


verb
Foul  v. t.  (past & past part. fouled; pres. part. fouling)  
1.
To make filthy; to defile; to daub; to dirty; to soil; as, to foul the face or hands with mire.
2.
(Mil.) To incrust (the bore of a gun) with burnt powder in the process of firing.
3.
To cover (a ship's bottom) with anything that impered its sailing; as, a bottom fouled with barnacles.
4.
To entangle, so as to impede motion; as, to foul a rope or cable in paying it out; to come into collision with; as, one boat fouled the other in a race.


Foul  v. i.  
1.
To become clogged with burnt powder in the process of firing, as a gun.
2.
To become entagled, as ropes; to come into collision with something; as, the two boats fouled.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Foul" Quotes from Famous Books



... when at a discount in the market, should be received at par by the collectors of the revenue. This enactment, if honestly carried into effect, would have been unobjectionable. But it was strongly rumoured that there had been foul play, peculation, even forgery. Duncombe threw the most serious imputations on the Board of Treasury, and pretended that he had been put out of his office only because he was too shrewd to be deceived, and too honest to join in deceiving the public. Tories and malecontent Whigs, elated by ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to be out in the fields again after the foul odors of the night, and the travelers were off before dawn. The country looked more familiar to Mackay this morning, for they passed through wheat and barley fields. It seemed so strange to wander over a man's farm by a footpath, but it was a Chinese ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... standing reproach and terror of his descendants. For nearly a half century the very name of Jay Gould has been a persisting jeer and by-word, an object of popular contumely and hatred, the signification of every foul and base crime by which ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... same law, the positive evils of corrupt government are bound to fall heaviest upon the poorest and least capable. When the water of Chicago is foul, the prosperous buy water bottled at distant springs; the poor have no alternative but the typhoid fever which comes from using the city's supply. When the garbage contracts are not enforced, the well-to-do pay for private service; the poor suffer the discomfort ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... countenance, without even a frown on his brow, for a quarter of an hour; and at the end of that time he got up and shook himself. It was not true. Whatever might be the explanation, it could not be true. There was some foul plot against his happiness; but whatever the nature of the plot might be, he was sure that the story as told to him in that letter was not true. And yet it was with a very heavy heart that he rose and walked ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope


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