foul

(foul)

adj. foul·er, foul·est

a. Offensive to the senses; revolting: "a foul little creature with greedy eyes and slobbering mouth" (J.R.R. Tolkien).

b. Having a bad odor or taste: foul breath; food that tasted foul.

c. Rotten or putrid: foul meat.

a. Containing dirt, impurities, or other foreign matter; foul water.

b. Clogged or bestrewn with unwanted material: The bay is foul with old sunken vessels.

c. Overgrown or encrusted with weeds, barnacles, or other organisms. Used of a ship's bottom.

d. Entangled or enwrapped: a foul anchor.

a. Morally detestable; wicked: foul deeds.

b. Vulgar or obscene: foul language.

c. Violating accepted standards or rules; dishonorable: used foul means to gain power.

a. Very disagreeable or displeasing; horrid: a foul movie.

b. Inclement or unfavorable: in fair weather or foul.

c. Irritable or upset: in a foul mood.

a. Sports Contrary to the rules of a game or sport: a foul boxing punch.

b. Baseball Outside the foul lines: a foul fly ball.

6. Marked with editorial changes or corrections: foul copy.

7. Archaic Ugly; unattractive.

1. Abbr. F

a. Sports An infraction or a violation of the rules of play.

b. Baseball A foul ball.

2. An entanglement or a collision.

3. An instance of clogging or obstructing.

4. A foul copy of a document.

adv.

In a foul manner.

v. fouled, foul·ing, fouls

v.tr.

1. To make dirty or foul; pollute. See Synonyms at contaminate.

2. To bring into dishonor; besmirch.

3. To clog or obstruct.

4. To entangle or catch (a rope, for example).

5. To encrust (a ship's hull) with foreign matter, such as barnacles.

a. Sports To commit a foul against.

b. Baseball To hit (a ball) outside the foul lines.

v.intr.

1. To become foul.

a. Sports To commit a foul.

b. Baseball To hit a ball outside the foul lines: fouled twice and then struck out; fouled out to the catcher.

3. To become entangled or twisted: The anchor line fouled on a rock.

4. To become clogged or obstructed.

Phrasal Verbs:

foul out

Sports To be put out of a game for exceeding the number of permissible fouls.

foul up

To blunder or cause to blunder because of mistakes or poor judgment.

[Middle English, from Old English fūl; see pū̆- in Indo-European roots.]

foul′ly adv.

foul′ness n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adv.	1.	foully - in an unfair and insulting manner; "this internationally known writer was foully condemned by the Muslim fundamentalists" insultingly
	2.	foully - in a wicked and shameful manner; "two policemen were foully murdered"

Translations

fangoso

foully

adv (= horribly) → übel, schlimm

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

I, too, have been foully calumniated by our ancient enemy, the Infamous Falsehood, and I wish to point out that I am made of the fur of the MUSTELA MACULATA, which is dirty from birth."

View in context

Foully murdered, with a score of wounds upon him and a rope round his neck, his poor friend had been cast from the upper window and swung slowly in the night wind, his body rasping against the wall and his disfigured face upon a level with the casement.

View in context

Ah, sir, there's blood foully shed in every step of it!

View in context

He had felt so sure of winning Professor Maxon's fortune through either a forced or voluntary marriage with the girl that his feelings now were as of one whose rightful heritage has been foully wrested from him.

View in context

Also, he fought as foully as a successful fighter knows how.

View in context

Being of an eccentric and melancholy turn of mind, and greatly given to rummaging old records and hearkening to old traditions, he had brought himself, it is averred, to the conclusion that Matthew Maule, the wizard, had been foully wronged out of his homestead, if not out of his life.

View in context

"But if not, there is no object in raking up this scandal against a dead man, foully as he has acted.

View in context

130 million girls worldwide are not in education, our oceans are being foully polluted,

PM statement on G7 Summit: 3 September 2019

This is due almost entirely to the foully polluted state of its estuary.

'Foul' Forth blamed for salmon decline; Observer wades into pollution row

In 3.1, we first hear Banquo "fear" that Macbeth "playe[d] most foully" for the crown (3) and then Macbeth laments his own unsafety and fear of Banquo ("To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus: / Our fears in Banquo stick deep, / And in his royalty of nature reigns that / Which would be feared"; 47-50).

Linguistic Taboos and the "Unscene" of Fear in Macbeth

I started it with Philippe Sands's East West Street (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), which examines the meaning and importance of law, of the words that go to make it and of life lived well versus life lived foully. It does this personally, universally, locally and internationally with an eye to what unites and protects us from the power-madness of a divide-and-rule mentality that's once more, right now, courting catastrophe.

The best reads of the year

ludo, loudly, loud, lolly, lolled, loll, lode, foully, fouled, foul, folly, fold, floe, dolly, doll, doleful, dole, DOLEFULLY Wordsquare: X.

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