befoul
verb/bɪˈfaʊl/
Etymology
Definitions
To make foul
To make foul; to soil; to contaminate, pollute.
- Only the four walls of his home still stood, blackened and smoking with the sluggish, stinking smoke that befouled the sea-wind.
To stain or mar (e.g., with infamy or disgrace).
- 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.
- “[…] 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——”
- There she sits before you, gentlemen, betrayed by her husband, befouled by every idle tongue that wags […]
To entangle or run against so as to impede motion.
The neighborhood
- neighborafoul
Derived
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at befoul. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at befoul. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
5 hops · closes at befoul
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA