foul – English adjective declension

Adjective: foul

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparative	fouler
Superlative	foulest

Perifrastic

Sample Sentences

This cloth is too foul to use as a duster.
His foul hands got dirt all over the kitchen.
The air was so foul nobody could breathe.
A ship's bottom is foul when overgrown with barnacles
A well is foul with polluted water.
It was, however, most interesting work, and the moulders themselves were a decent crowd, never tired of making jokes about themselves such as the hoary one that moulders did not live long, which however ran counter to the other one that no germs could live in a foundry—the atmosphere was too foul. [1944 November and December, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 342:]
Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles. [2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29:]
The rascal spewed forth a series of foul words.
His foul language causes many people to believe he is uneducated.
He has a foul set of friends.
[…]Hast thou forgot / The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy / Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her? [1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:]
Who first seduced them to that foul revolt? [1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:]
Cultural norms and social rules regulate whether someone can be among others or will be isolated, whether the sick will be considered foul or acceptable, and whether they are to be pitied or censured. [1982 March 18, Eric J. Cassel[l], “The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine”, in The New England Journal of Medicine, volume 306, number 11, →DOI, page 642:]
This foul food is making me retch.
There was a foul smell coming from the toilet.
Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares. [c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:]
Some foul weather is brewing.
So foul a sky clears not without a storm. [c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:]
Foul play is not suspected.
We've got a foul anchor.
A rope could get foul while it is being paid out.
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. [2015, Transportation Safety Board of Canada, Railway Investigation Report R13T0192]
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. [2026 March 18, Greg Morse, “1996 crash driving freight reforms”, in RAIL, number 1057, page 50:]
Jones hit foul ball after foul ball.

Adjectives inflected like foul

sallow, smooth, slight, sleigh, sordid, somber, shweet, shrill, shrewd, yellow, yaller, hard knock, DRY, Greek, cut short, unquiet, unclean, indiscreet, chipper, straicht, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)

Etymology

1. 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”).
2. Cognates
3. 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.
4. Ancient Greek φαῦλος (phaûlos, “bad”) is a false cognate inasmuch as it is not from the same etymon, instead being cognate to few. See: Dutch Adjectives 'vuil', German Adjectives 'faul', Swedish Adjectives 'ful', Gothic Adjectives '𐍆𐌿𐌻𐍃', Latin Adjectives 'puter'.

Verbs referencing "foul"

Swedish Adjectives ful, German Adjectives faul, Dutch Adjectives vuil, Latin Adjectives puter.