foul
Meanings
- Covered with, or containing unclean matter; dirty.
- Obscene, vulgar or abusive.
- Detestable, unpleasant, loathsome.
- Disgusting, repulsive; causing disgust.
- Ugly; homely; poor.
- Unpleasant, stormy or rainy. (of the weather)
- Dishonest or not conforming to the established rules and customs of a game, conflict, test, etc.
- Entangled and therefore restricting free movement, not clear.
- (with "of") Positioned on, in, or near enough to (a specified area) so as to obstruct it.
- Outside of the base lines; in foul territory.
- To make dirty.
- To besmirch.
- 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).
- To entangle.
- 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.
- To commit a foul.
- To hit outside of the baselines.
- To hit a ball outside of the baselines.
- To become clogged.
- To become entangled.
- To come into contact or collide with.
- 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.
- A (usually accidental) contact between a bowler and the lane before the bowler has released the ball.
- A foul ball, a ball which has been hit outside of the base lines.
Pronunciation
Word forms
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”). 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”), 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.