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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



... Ramona both went about their day's business with a secret purpose in their hearts. Margarita had made up her mind that before night she would, by fair means or foul, have a good long talk with Alessandro. "He was fond enough of me last year, I know," she said to herself, recalling some of the dances and the good-night leave-takings at that time. "It's because he is so put upon by everybody now. What with Juan Can in one bed sending for ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... had already gone far to rehabilitate this former "bad man" in the good graces of the community. Under cover of this friendship, McKee hoped to escape suspicion of any part in the homicide he contemplated. For it was murder, foul, unprovoked murder that was in the black soul of the half-breed. He intended to incriminate Bud so deeply as to put it beyond all thought that ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... deny. It has been the great curse of this Country from its infancy to the present hour, And now that the States in Rebellion have given the Loyal States the opportunity to take off that curse, to wipe away the foul stain, I say let it be done. We owe it to ourselves; we owe it to posterity; we owe it to the Slaves themselves to exterminate Slavery forever by the adoption of the proposed Amendment to the Constitution. * * ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... to exercise that greatest of all rights, bestowed by a beneficent God upon his rational creatures, namely, the government of themselves by themselves. Acting upon this opinion, an opinion as false as it is foul—acting upon this opinion, as upon a self-evident proposition, those who held it proceeded with a fiendish consistency to deny the rights of citizens to those whom they had declared incapable of performing ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... gained the east bridge, there was no small tumult in progress. For a handful of scholars, on their way to morning lecture, had fallen foul of a handful of yeomen bound for the fields, and were stoutly disputing the passage. When I appeared, I was claimed at once by the scholars as one of them, and willy-nilly, had to throw in my lot with them. The fight was a sharp one, for the yeomen had their sticks and shares ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed


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