foul
$ \mathrm{foul}^1
/faʊl/
1 dirty and smelling bad
foul air/breath
a foul-smelling prison
Foul drinking water was blamed for the epidemic.
2 (especially British English) very unpleasant; very bad
She's in a foul mood.
His boss has a foul temper.
This tastes foul.
3 (of language) including rude words and swearing
She exploded in a torrent of foul language.
I'm sick of her foul mouth (= habit of swearing).
He called her the foulest names imaginable.
4 (of weather) very bad, with strong winds and rain
a foul night
5 (literary) very evil or cruel
a foul crime/murder
Harper was penalized for a foul tackle.
Idioms
$ \mathrm{foul}^2
/faʊl/
(in sport) an action that is against the rules of the game
It was a clear foul by Ford on the goalkeeper.
(North American English) to hit a foul (= in baseball, a ball that is too far left or right, outside the lines that mark the side of the field)
He drew a fourth foul on Camby.
He was sent off for a blatant foul on Giggs.
The referee did not call a foul on the player.
Collocations
adjective
blatantcleardeliberate…
verb + foul
commitdrawcall…
preposition
foul on
$ \mathrm{foul}^3
/faʊl/
1 transitive foul somebody (in sport) to do something to another player that is against the rules of the game He was fouled inside the penalty area.
3 transitive foul something to make something dirty, especially with waste matter from the body Do not permit your dog to foul the grass.
More and more beaches are being fouled by oil leakages.
foul something (up) The rope fouled the propeller.
The line became fouled in (= became twisted in) the propeller.
foul (up) A rope fouled up (= became twisted) as we pulled the sail down.
Phrasal Verbs
Word Origin
Old English fūl, of Germanic origin; related to Old Norse fúll ‘foul’, Dutch vuil ‘dirty’, and German faul ‘rotten, lazy’, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin pus, Greek puos ‘pus’, and Latin putere ‘to stink’.