foul

Meaning

1. Covered with, or containing unclean matter; dirty.
2. Obscene, vulgar or abusive.
3. Detestable, unpleasant, loathsome.
4. Disgusting, repulsive; causing disgust.
5. (obsolete) Ugly; homely; poor.
6. Unpleasant, stormy or rainy. (of the weather)
7. Dishonest or not conforming to the established rules and customs of a game, conflict, test, etc.
8. Entangled and therefore restricting free movement, not clear.
9. (with "of") Positioned on, in, or near enough to (a specified area) so as to obstruct it.
10. Outside of the base lines; in foul territory.

dirty

nasty

strong-smelling

ill-scented

marked-up

act dishonestly

bad-smelling

dirty-minded

do wrong

make dirty

renegue on

be spattered

be blotted with

be soiled

be stained with

not clean

extremely bad

muddy up

make foul/dirty

bare-knuckle

bare-knuckled

collide with

renege on

run foul of

play foul

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/faʊl/

Inherited from Middle English foul, 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- (“to rot”). Cognate with Dutch vuil (“foul, dirty, filthy, obscene, lewd”), German faul (“foul, rotten, putrid, lazy”), German Low German fuul (“foul, rotten, putrid”), Faroese fúlur (“foul”), Icelandic fúll (“foul, rotten, sullen”), Danish ful (“nasty, ugly”), Norwegian Bokmål ful (“clever, sly”), Norwegian Bokmål ful (“clever, sly”) and Swedish ful (“ugly, dirty, bad”), and through Indo-European, with Albanian fëlliq (“to make dirty”), Latin puter (“rotten”). 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.