Word: foul Part of Speech: adj 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. Pronunciation: /faʊl/, /ˈfaʊ.əl/ 1. Covered with, or containing unclean matter; dirty. Example: This cloth is too foul to use as a duster. Example: His foul hands got dirt all over the kitchen. 2. Obscene, vulgar or abusive. Example: The rascal spewed forth a series of foul words. Example: His foul language causes many people to believe he is uneducated. 3. Detestable, unpleasant, loathsome. Example: He has a foul set of friends. Example: […]Hast thou forgot / The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy / Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her? 4. Disgusting, repulsive; causing disgust. Example: This foul food is making me retch. Example: There was a foul smell coming from the toilet. 5. Ugly; homely; poor. Labels: obsolete Example: Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares. 6. Unpleasant, stormy or rainy. (of the weather) Example: Some foul weather is brewing. Example: So foul a sky clears not without a storm. 7. Dishonest or not conforming to the established rules and customs of a game, conflict, test, etc. Example: Foul play is not suspected. 8. Entangled and therefore restricting free movement, not clear. Example: We've got a foul anchor. Example: A rope could get foul while it is being paid out. 9. (with "of") Positioned on, in, or near enough to (a specified area) so as to obstruct it. Example: The bus had stopped just foul of the north track at the Erindale Station Road public railway crossing […] With the bus stationary, but still foul of the north track, the train struck one of its front mirrors. Example: Ten of the freight train's wagons had derailed, two of them foul of the Down Fast. At 2308, the TPO struck one of them, causing the locomotive (86239) to jack-knife and turn so that it was almost touching the end wall of a house in The Russetts, a new-build row that sat close to the line. 10. Outside of the base lines; in foul territory. Example: Jones hit foul ball after foul ball.