foul

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Very unpleasant to smell, taste, or touch; disgusting.

   A foul smell came from the rubbish bin.

2. 2
   adj

   Rude, offensive, or obscene.

   He shouted a series of foul words at the referee.

3. 3
   adj

   Dirty; covered with unclean matter.

   This cloth is too foul to use as a duster.

4. 4
   verb

   To make something dirty or polluted.

   The factory was fined for fouling the river.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Foul is an Old English word whose earliest sense was “stinking” or “disgusting.” It comes from an ancient root also represented by Latin pus and putere, “to stink”; later developments include foul play for unfair or treacherous conduct and the sporting noun foul.

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”). Cognates 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”), I…

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