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say it: fowl
foul is an adjective, verb and noun meaning "highly offensive; arousing aversion or disgust". It is pronounced /ˈfaʊl/ — fowl. It carries 16 recorded senses.
highly offensive; arousing aversion or disgust
“a disgusting smell”
“distasteful language”
“a loathsome disease”
“the idea of eating meat is repellent to me”
“revolting food”
“a wicked stench”
offensively malodorous
“a foul odor”
“the kitchen smelled really funky”
violating accepted standards or rules
“a dirty fighter”
“used foul means to gain power”
“a nasty unsporting serve”
“fined for unsportsmanlike behavior”
make impure
“The industrial wastes polluted the lake”
become soiled and dirty
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for foul come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.