befoul

present singular third person befouls · participle present befouling · participle past befouled · past befouled

1. literallyTo make foul; to soil; to contaminate, pollute.

   1997, Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid, “Echo and Narcissus” in Paul Keegan (ed.), Ted Hughes: Collected Poems, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003, p. 919, There was a pool of perfect water. […] No cattle Had slobbered their muzzles in it And befouled it.

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   These heights are a desirable retreat, for less picturesque reasons—as an escape from a compound of vile smells perpetually arising from a great harbour full of stagnant water, and befouled by the refuse of innumerable ships with all sorts of cargoes: which, in hot weather, is dreadful in the last degree.

   1846, Charles Dickens, “Avignon to Genoa”, in Pictures from Italy, London: […] Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, page 34

   1897, Robert Gwynneddon Davies (translator), The Sleeping Bard by Ellis Wynne, London: Simplkon, Marshall & Co., Part I, At last, what with a round of blasphemy, and the whole crowd with clay pistols belching smoke and fire and slander of their neighbours, and the floor already befouled with dregs and spittle, I feared lest viler deeds should happen, and craved to depart.

   Only the four walls of his home still stood, blackened and smoking with the sluggish, stinking smoke that befouled the sea-wind.

   1983, Mary Stewart, chapter 5, in The Wicked Day, New York: William Morrow, page 53

   Synonyms: befile, befilth, foul, assoil, beclart, bedaub, bedirty, imbrue (especially with blood)

   1. literallyspecificallyTo defecate on, to soil with excrement.

      For its an ill Bird will befoule her own Nest […]

      1666, George Alsop, A Character of the Province of Mary-Land, London: Peter Dring, Preface

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      “[…] But pray what smell is that? Sure your lapdog has befoul’d himself;—let me catch hold of the nasty cur, I’ll teach him better manners.”

      1748, [Tobias Smollett], chapter 12, in The Adventures of Roderick Random. […], volume I, London: […] [William Strahan] for J[ohn] Osborn […], →OCLC, page 91

      Synonyms: befile, befilth, foul, assoil, beclart, bedaub, bedirty, imbrue (especially with blood)

2. figurativelyTo stain or mar (e.g., with infamy or disgrace).

   There she sits before you, gentlemen, betrayed by her husband, befouled by every idle tongue that wags […]

   1927, Frances Noyes Hart, chapter 5, in The Bellamy Trial, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., published 1929, page 159

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   For three days Pete bore himself according to his wont, thinking to silence the evil tongues of the little world about him, and keep sweet and alive the dear name which they were waiting to befoul and destroy.

   1894, Hall Caine, The Manxman, London: Heinemann, Part 5, p. 282

   “[…] you combine a vulgar atheism and an iconoclastic desire to befoul the sacred ideas of the average man or woman, collectively scorned as the bourgeoisie——”

   1923, James Branch Cabell, The High Place, London: John Lane, Part 2, Chapter 15

   Synonyms: besmirch, sully, tarnish, assassinate, asperse, backbite, badmouth, belibel

3. figurativelyTo entangle or run against so as to impede motion.

   Synonyms: enmesh, foul, snarl, enmesh, ensnare, ensnarl, entangle, foul