Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Foul   Listen
verb
Foul  v. i.  
1.
To become clogged with burnt powder in the process of firing, as a gun.
2.
To become entagled, as ropes; to come into collision with something; as, the two boats fouled.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Foul" Quotes from Famous Books



... drop off, or only came, bullying and swearing, to demand money. And now another class of men began to take their place, the sight of whom made her blood cold—worse dressed than the others, and worse mannered, with strange, foul oaths on their lips. And then, after a time, two ruffians, worse looking than any of the others, began to come there, of whom the one she dreaded most was ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... trying to pick the good lesson out of everybody: the Yankees, the Rebels, the Devil himself, she thought, must have some purpose of good, if she could only get at it. God's creatures alike. She durst not bring against the foul fiend himself a "railing accusation," being as timid in judging evil as were her Master and the archangel Michael. An old-fashioned timidity, of course: people thought Dode a time-server, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... were scarce; beds and bedding could not be often changed. Here were rooms crowded with uncomfortable-looking beds, on which lay men whose gangrened wounds gave forth foul odors, which, mingled with the terrible effluvia from the mouths of patients ill of scurvy, sent a shuddering sickness through my frame. In one room were three or four patients with faces discolored and swollen out of all semblance of humanity by erysipelas,—raging with fever, ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... which was defended with great vigour. At length it was resolved, in a council of war, that a detachment should pass at a ford a little to the left of the bridge, though the river was deep and rapid, the bottom foul and stony, and the pass guarded by a ravelin, erected for that purpose. The forlorn hope consisted of sixty grenadiers in armour, headed by captain Sandys and two lieutenants. They were seconded by another detachment, and this was supported ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... third adult male was I was told that he was a boarder with one of the families. There were several children, three men, and two women in this room. The tobacco was stowed about everywhere, alongside the foul bedding, and in a corner where there were scraps of food. The men, women, and children in this room worked by day and far on into the evening, and they slept and ate there. They were Bohemians, unable to speak English, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... the tobacco out of his pipe leisurely ... then, silent, he began scraping the black, foul inside of the bowl ... ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... learned that pestilences will only take up their abode among those who have prepared unswept and ungarnished residences for them. Their cities must have narrow, unwatered streets, foul with accumulated garbage. Their houses must be ill-drained, ill-lighted, ill-ventilated. Their subjects must be ill-washed, ill-fed, ill-clothed. The London of 1665 was such a city. The cities of the East, where plague ...
— On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge • Thomas H. Huxley

... rank. They have shown that they have been worthy of all the encouragement which they have received. Nevertheless, they are too often subjected to thoughtless and inconsiderate treatment, unworthy alike of the white or colored races. They have especially been made the target of the foul crime of lynching. For several years these acts of unlawful violence had been diminishing. In the last year they have shown an increase. Every principle of order and law and liberty is opposed to this crime. The Congress ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge

... a way," declared the old sailor, with a hopefulness he was far from feeling, for he knew well, by hearsay, of the terrible swamp quagmires that swiftly suck their victims down to a horrible death in the foul mud. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... coeval with Coryat the Fork-bearer, Breton's "Court and Country," 1618, there is a passage very relevant to this part of the theme:—"For us in the country," says he, "when we have washed our hands after no foul work, nor handling any unwholesome thing, we need no little forks to make hay with our mouths, to ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt

... down to open it with a light heart,—for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... Literature in this respect have been sharply curtailed within the past eighty or ninety years. Fielding and Smollett could portray the beastliness of their day in the beastliest language; we have plenty of foul subjects to deal with in our day, but we are not allowed to approach them very near, even with nice and guarded forms of speech. But not so with Art. The brush may still deal freely with any subject, however revolting ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... crime or incurred a laugh—it is the next morning, when the irretrievable Past rises before him like a spectre; then doth the churchyard of memory yield up its grisly dead—then is the witching hour when the foul fiend within us can least tempt perhaps, but most torment. At night we have one thing to hope for, one refuge to fly to—oblivion and sleep! But at morning, sleep is over, and we are called upon coldly to review, and re-act, and live again the waking bitterness of self-reproach. Maltravers ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... King's Weakness, an infallible Poison which he found Means to have given her, worked at the very Instant that he went to perform his Commission. As she was soon violently seiz'd with the Approaches of Death, it was believed by the Generality, who had no Notion of foul Play, that Lenertoula had been overcome by an Excess of Joy, which is always more forcible than that of Grief, especially in Women. Upon this Notion, a Kofiran Wit made four Verses, which may be thus ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon

... secure hiding-place in the maw of a shark; but there were others who, happening to have been present when I was summoned from Mammy Wilkinson's hotel upon my supposititious errand of help and rescue to young Lindsay, at once mentioned the circumstance, with the result that a very strong suspicion of foul play was aroused. My friend and patron, the admiral, was especially concerned upon my account, even going to the length of offering a reward of fifty pounds for such intelligence as should lead ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... fits, with secret smiles, a human heart 275 Concealed beneath his robe; and motley shapes, A multitudinous throng, around him knelt. With bosoms bare, and bowed heads, and false looks Of true submission, as the sphere rolled by. Brooking no eye to witness their foul shame, 280 Which human hearts must feel, while human tongues Tremble to speak, they did rage horribly, Breathing in self-contempt fierce blasphemies Against the Daemon of the World, and high Hurling their armed hands where the pure Spirit, 285 Serene and inaccessibly secure, ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... which shows how much Jesus loved John. It was after the foul murder of the Baptist. The record is very brief. The friends of the dead prophet gathered in the prison, and, taking up the headless body of their master, they carried it away to a reverent, tearful burial. Then they went and told Jesus. The narrative says, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... tell you that we are in danger. We are sick with the foul disease of office seeking; we are crippled hand and foot not only for fighting but for working, because our public officers are inexperienced men who spend four years in learning a trade not theirs, and are very generally turned out before ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford

... Tongue. I am covered with a foul fur, placed on me the night of the liver-attack. Morbid Secre- tion hypnotized the prisoner and took control of his mind, 431:24 making ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... serves mercy But to confront the visage of offence; And what's in prayer but this twofold force— To be forestalled ere we come to fall, Or pardoned, being down? Then I'll look up; My fault is past. But O what form of prayer Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder?— That cannot be; since I am still possessed Of those effects for which I did the murder,— My crown, my own ambition, and my queen. May one be pardoned and retain the offence? In the corrupted currents of this world, ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... whenever I passed it. It merely indicated the spot, but was not altogether used itself. It was impossible, when passing through the yard, not to take note of this spot; one always felt oppressed when one entered the penetrating atmosphere which was emitted by this foul smell. ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... Dwells in deformed tabernacle drownd, Either by chance, against the course of kind, Or through unaptness of the substance found, Which it assumed of some stubborn ground That will not yield unto her form's direction, But is preformed with some foul imperfection. ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... large ticks on stock, enemies are endeavoring to get possession of your property by foul means. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... delivering the ball to the bat, but they thereby afforded the batsman an additional chance for more effective work at the bat. This latter point, too, has been aided by reducing the number of outs the batsman has hitherto been unfairly subjected to. The rule which puts batsmen out on catches of foul balls, which, since the game originated, has been an unfair rule of play, has seen its best day; and this year the entering wedge to its ultimate disappearance has been driven in, with the practical result of the repeal of the foul tip catch. This improvement, too, is in the line of aiding the ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick

... wandered thither in their cups, "for the lark of it," only to return to consciousness days afterwards, stripped, shorn, and shattered in health bodily and mental, to find themselves in some vile kennel miles from Dutch House; and of other men who passed once through its foul portals and—passed out a secret way, never to return to the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... enter Uilcapampa and deliver the viceroy's invitation, but were not inclined to believe that it was quite so attractive as appeared on the surface, even though brought to them by a kinsman. Accordingly, they kept the visitor as a hostage and sent a messenger of their own to Cuzco to see if any foul play could be discovered, and also to request that one John Sierra, a more trusted cousin, be sent to treat in this matter. ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... have done with the wretched business once for all!" Which I meant not, and was silly to fume, and thankless, too, to anger the Almighty with ingratitude for His long and most miraculous protection. But I was in a foul humor with the world and myself, and I knew not what ailed me, either. True, the insolence of that libertine, Walter Butler, affronted me, and it gave me a sour pleasure to think how I should quiet his swagger with ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... Norman fable," said the Thegn of Kent, with a disturbed visage; "and Godwin cleared himself on oath of all share in the foul ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... We saw much foul ground to the S. and S.S.E. but had no bottom with 150 fathom. Before one, however, we saw shoal water on the larboard bow, and standing from it, passed another ledge at two. At three, we saw a low sandy point, which I called Sandy Isle, bearing N. 1/2 E. distant about two miles. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... us on! We follow! Why defer Until to-morrow, what to-day may do? Tell's arm was free when we at Rootli swore. This foul enormity was yet undone. And change of circumstance brings change of vow; Who such a coward ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... no questions till we are out of the harbour, or you will be running foul of one of those colliers—a tribute with which the ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... cold water, or by keeping him with scant clothing on his bed. The temperature of a bedroom, in the winter time, should be, as nearly as possible, at 60 deg. Fahr. Although the room should be comfortably warm, it ought from time to time to be properly ventilated. An unventilated room soon becomes foul, and, therefore, unhealthy. How many in this world, both children and adults, are "poisoned with their ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... and 9 W. 3. c. 26; 15. and 16 G 2. c. 28; 7 Ann. q. 25. By the laws of AEthelstan and Canute, this was punished by cutting off the hand. 'Gifse mynetereful wurthe sleaman tha hand of, the he that fil mid worthe and sette iippon tha rnynet smithlhan.' In English characters and words 'if the minler foul [Criminal] wert, slay the hand off, that he the foul [crime] with wrought, and set upon the mint-smithery.' LI,iEthelst. 14. 'And selhe ofer this false wyrce, tholige thaera handa the he thaet false mid worhte.' 'Et si quis prater hanc, falsam fecerit, perdat ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... the blackest melancholy—contempt of man. Let me leave no doubt as to what I despise, whom I despise: it is the man of today, the man with whom I am unhappily contemporaneous. The man of today—I am suffocated by his foul breath!... Toward the past, like all who understand, I am full of tolerance, which is to say, generous self-control: with gloomy caution I pass through whole millenniums of this madhouse of a world, call it "Christianity," "Christian faith" or the "Christian church," ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche

... Guy said, advancing a step, "I hope you will pardon the manner in which I have entered your house, after years of absence, but I have come, and only just in time to vindicate the wrongs of poor, duped victims, and to rescue innocence from the foul ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... of foul names bestowed upon those poor creatures is long and curious;—and, as is, alas! too natural, most of the opprobrious appellations are drawn from circumstances into which they were forced by their persecutors, who even consolidated ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... self-consciously and with unnecessary refinements, a few poems of Lermontov (Pushkin had not then come into fashion again). Then suddenly, as though ashamed of his enthusiasm, began, a propos of the well-known poem, "A Reverie," to attack and fall foul of the younger generation. While doing so he did not lose the opportunity of expounding how he would change everything! after his own fashion, if the power were in his hands. "Russia," he said, "has fallen behind ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... if I were weak enough to trust a lady with my money at a gambling table, I should expect foul play; for I never knew a lady yet who would not cheat at cards, if she could. I trusted my money to a tradesman to bet with. If he takes a female partner, that is no business of mine; he is responsible all the same, and I'll have ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... off Akimiski yesterday after walrus, but when it came on to blow we turned home, for there is no anchorage to run to there in dirty weather, but plenty of rocks to fall foul of, which are not quite so pleasant. But we couldn't get home for a while, being blown along the east coast of the island, with a lively chance of being wrecked at any minute. We were beating along under the lee of the island when we saw a boat drifting ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... things, which are known to have been done through a laudable devotion, are not unworthily extolled with due praises; and since the mind, when relaxed, loses its energy, and the torpor of sloth enervates the understanding, as iron acquires rust for want of use, and stagnant waters become foul; lest my pen should be injured by the rust of idleness, I have thought good to commit to writing the devout visitation which Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, made throughout Wales; and to hand down, as it were in a mirror, through you, O illustrious Stephen, to posterity, ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... ages back, when other eyes began To see and know and love as now they can, Unravelling God's wonders heap by heap? Or doth the Past lie 'mid Eternity In charnel dens that rot and reek alway, A dismal light for those that go astray, A pit of foul deformity—to be, Beauty, a dreadful source of growth for thee When thou wouldst lift thine eyes to greet ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... 'Here has been foul play,' he said. 'The deceased lady has been murdered. This dagger was aimed straight at her heart.' Then putting on his spectacles, he read the writing on the bloody paper, dimmed and ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... of indescribable terror and alarm. I was swimming for whole days and nights together in a shoreless sea, tossed by storms, and swarming with monsters, one or other of which was continually seizing me by the foot, and dragging me down; while over my head foul birds of prey, each and all with the terrified face of the poor wretch whom I had frightened in the marsh, and clutching firearms in their semi-human claws, were firing at my head, and swooping to devour ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various

... or I shall give it the slip," laughed Ben: "the gale never yet blowed as could perwent my crossing the Thames. The weather's been foul enough for the last fortnight, but I've never turned my back ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... much truth in them, while her threat regarding a righteous judgment overtaking the family at Heathdale caused her heart to sink with a sudden dread of disgraceful punishment for herself if ever her complicity in this foul plot should ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... knew baseball. She knew what a "foul" was, and she knew what happened when one passed four balls, and she knew when one was out. And she had often said fatuously that she loved baseball, because she understood it. But she did not understand it. She understood a mild ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... Illinois boatman, swaying to and fro as he preached. For the men were honest, God-fearing souls, members of the same church, and Dave, in all integrity of purpose, read aloud to them,—the cry of Jeremiah against the foul splendors of the doomed city,—waving, as he spoke, his bony arm to the South. The shrill voice was that of a man wrestling with his Maker. The negro's fired brain caught the terrible meaning of the words,—found speech in it: the wide, dark night, the solemn silence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... few small personal belongings they took nothing except the clothes they wore—and they wore as little as possible, and those the oldest and shabbiest things to be found. So there was nothing to do, all that last day, but watch the slow hours pass, and endeavour to avoid falling foul of any of the guards—no easy matter, since every German delighted in any chance of making trouble for a prisoner. Nothing but to think and plan, as they had planned and thought a thousand times before; to wonder desperately was all safe still—had the door ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... word. Others took their allowance, and bartered enough millet to feed a man through a week for a few handfuls of rotten rice saved by some less unfortunate. A few put their shares into the rice-mortars, pounded it, and made a paste with foul water; but they were very few. Scott understood dimly that many people in the India of the South ate rice, as a rule, but he had spent his service in a grain Province, had seldom seen rice in the blade or the ear, and least of all would have believed that, in time of deadly ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling

... of some historians discrediting the more honourable and straightforward courses which Walsingham and Burghley habitually advocated—is one of the most remarkable features of Elizabeth's reign. Her good fortune did not desert her now. Don John died suddenly, not without the usual suspicions of foul play. The peculiar danger of his association with Mary Stewart, disappeared with his death. No wild schemes were likely to be conceived or encouraged by his successor Alexander of Parma, one of the ablest statesmen and probably the ablest ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... be, it is the most important one of the day to the boy and, for the interests of his character, it may be the most important for many a day to the father. If he answers with sympathy and interest this question on a "foul ball" or on marbles or peg-tops, he has opened a door that will always stay open so long as he approaches it with sincerity; if he slights it, if he is too busy with those lesser things that seem great to him, he has closed a door into the boy's life; it may never ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... free to bear through all his after life the stain of dishonor and nourish an ineffectual resentment. Imagine the storm of popular indignation that would be evoked in America by an instance of so foul injustice! ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... said, "that one should be saved, to take revenge for this foul business. All the ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... when we breakfasted, but the wind came from W.N.W. as we broke camp. It rapidly grew in strength. After travelling for half an hour I saw that none of us could go on facing such conditions. We were forced to camp and are spending the rest of the day in a comfortless blizzard camp, wind quite foul. (R. 52.) ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... Baldwin, in his 'Large and Small Game of Bengal,' puts this bear down as not only carnivorous, but a foul feeder. He says: "On my first visit to the hills I very soon learnt that this bear was a flesh-eater, so far as regards a sheep, goats, &c., but I could hardly believe that he would make a repast on such abominations (i.e. carrion), ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... wretches, who often carry us pick-a-back through one black hole into another, splashing us through dark pools, putting us down here and there as they pleased, picking us up again, grinning like demons, and by dint of shaking their torches above, and disturbing the water below, raising foul smells enough to intoxicate fifty Sybils. At length, half suffocated by those classical delights, we cry Enough! enough! and beg to be put into our saddles again. The Stufa di Nerone, a little further on the high-road, is another volcanic calidarium in full activity, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... they shot beneath a low bridge, and stopped at some steps immediately beyond. Here one of the men, getting out, proceeded to act as guide to the stranger. They had not far to go. They passed first of all into a long, low, and foul-smelling archway, in the middle of which was a narrow aperture protected by an iron gate. The man lit a candle, opened the gate, and preceded his companion along a passage and up a stone staircase. The atmosphere of the place was damp and sickly; ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... for that purpose. While the machine was cutting prairie grass in my field, I cut off a dry poplar stake, one inch in diameter, which had been sticking in the ground after it had been laid off for a ditch. I am of the opinion that it will cut wheat well, where it is so much lodged, or so foul with stiff weeds or corn stalks that it cannot be cut with any other machine I have seen in this country. Some of my neighbors say that they intend to have Mr. Hussey's reaper in preference to any other; and from ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various

... probably never cleaned because it never needs cleaning. Even the business streets, and the quaint square which gives the most American of towns an air so foreign and Old Worldly, look as if the wind and rain alone cared for them; but they are not foul, and the narrower avenues, where the smaller houses of gray, unpainted wood crowd each other, flush upon the pavements, towards the water—side, are doubtless unvisited by the hoe or broom, and must be kept clean by a New England ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... ears; and the same quality of all narrow-quartered ships to sink after the tail. The high charging of ships is that which brings many ill qualities upon them. It makes them extremely leeward, makes them sink deep into the seas, makes them labour in foul weather, and ofttimes overset. Safety is more to be respected than show or niceness for ease. In sea-journeys both cannot well stand together, and, therefore, the most necessary is to be chosen. Two decks and a-half is enough, and no building at all above that but a low master's cabin. Our masters ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... altar-flame is foul Where a dog passeth; angry angels sweep The ascending smoke aside, and all the fruits Of offering, and the merit of the prayer Of him whom a hound toucheth. Leave it here! He that will enter heaven must enter pure. Why didst thou quit thy brethren on the way, And Krishna, and the dear-loved ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... virtue for the city-bred, I fancy, in the clean salt air and simple living of our coast—and, surely, for every one, everywhere, a tonic in the performance of good deeds. Hard practice in fair and foul weather worked a vast change in the doctor. Toil and fresh air are eminent physicians. The wonder of salty wind and the hand-to-hand conflict with a northern sea! They gave him health, a clear-eyed, brown, deep-breathed sort ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan

... steward took the mallet, and sounded upon the head of each cask. They were all empty; and it was clear enough that there was not a drop of fresh water in the hold, except that which was already mingled with the foul bilge-water under the ballast. The ship was going to sea, and both clouds and barometer indicated heavy weather. The steward was troubled, and immediately hastened to the principal with the alarming intelligence. He found Mr. Lowington in the main cabin, ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... prevented from putting to sea on that day by a succession of accidents, by which five of the heaviest ships were disabled before they could leave the harbour. The Prime missed stays, and fell on board the Sans Pareil. The Formidable ran foul of the Ville de Paris; and the Atlas grounded. Four of these were three-deckers, and the other was one of the finest 80-gun ships in the service. When at length part of the fleet reached St. Helen's, a shift of wind kept the rest at Spithead; and the Admiral could not put to ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... tag of rusty, black ribbon aforesaid. For an unreasoning, fierce desire was upon him—very alien to his usual gentle attitude of mind—to shield this beautiful woman from all acquaintance with the foul story set forth in those little books. To shield her, indeed, from more than merely that.—For a vague presentiment possessed him that she might, in some mysterious way, be intimately involved in the final developments of that same story which, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... there was nothing in the world so well worth shewing as the glorious works which he and my uncle Toby had made, Trim courteously and gallantly took her by the hand, and led her in: this was not done so privately, but that the foul-mouth'd trumpet of Fame carried it from ear to ear, till at length it reach'd my father's, with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my uncle Toby's curious draw-bridge, constructed and painted after the Dutch fashion, and which went quite across the ditch—was broke down, and ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... The ship 'Good Fortune,' tho' at setting forth The Biscay, roughly ridging eastward, shook And almost overwhelm'd her, yet unvext She slipt across the summer of the world, Then after a long tumble about the Cape And frequent interchange of foul and fair, She passing thro' the summer world again, The breath of heaven came continually And sent her sweetly by the golden isles, Till silent ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson

... and it was at last, after one reading, dropped by the commons. Though the reparation of injustice be the second honor which a nation can attain, the present emergence seemed very improper for granting so full a justification to the Catholics, and throwing so foul a stain on ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... precious metals! And, O warrior I swooned away, and, O king of men, my sire seemed like unto Yayati after the loss of his merit, falling towards the earth from heaven! And like unto a luminary whose merit hath been lost saw my father falling, his head-gear foul and flowing loosely, and his hair and dress disordered. And then the bow Sharanga dropped from my hand, and, O son of Kunti I swooned away! I sat down on the side of the car. And, O thou descendant of the Bharata race, seeing me deprived of consciousness on the car, and as if dead, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... evident to me that Mary Simms had vaguely shared suspicions of the same foul deed. On my own mind came conviction. But what could I do next? how bring this evil man to justice? what proof would be deemed to exist in those writings? I was bewildered, weak, irresolute. Like Hamlet, I shrank back and temporized. But I was not feigning madness; ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... grateful to you boys," was the rejoinder. "'Forewarned is forearmed.' If Judson and his crowd attempt any foul tactics they will ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... miserable campaign, beyond the bare recital of Vittoria's adventures; yet when Vicenza by chance was mentioned, she burst out: "They are not cities, they are living shrieks. They have been made impious for ever. Burn them to ashes, that they may not breathe foul upon heaven!" She had clung to the skirts of the army as far as the field of Custozza. "He," she said, pointing to the room where Merthyr lay,—"he groans less than the others I have nursed. Generally, when they looked at me, they appeared obliged ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... tone;" rather its calmness was that of a child, who, in its own utter helplessness, clings to its father's arm, and feels secure. Neither must we forget that a painful diversion of her thoughts from the terrors around her, was afforded by the necessities of her suffering babe, to whom the foul air of the wharf-house, and the want of all comforts, had nearly proved fatal. It was only her sleepless, vigilant care, that, under Providence, prevented the poor child from sharing the fate of Mrs. Burney's little infant, which did not ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

...foul descriptions are offensive still, either for being like, or being ill. For who, without a qualm, hath ever look'd on holy garbage, tho' by Homer cook'd? Whose railing heroes, and whose wounded Gods, make some ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... The next Banner spoke of a foul conspiracy whose nefarious end it was to blacken the sterling character of a good man, of that Nestor of the Slocum County Bar, Colonel J. Rodney Potts. As testimony that the best citizens of the town were not involved ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... said the old man, with a dry chuckle; and as soon as he was alone, he threw the foul water away. "Yes," he muttered, "it does smell; but that's a splendid egg, and not ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... I must forth, is sure; what else May chance ere that, I cannot see. My heart leaps up, when I recall The foul injustice I have borne, And glows with fierce revenge! No deed So dread or awful but I would Put hand to it!— He loves these babes, Forsooth, because he sees in them His own self mirrored back again, Himself—his idol!—Nay, he ne'er Shall ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... them all for?" said John, falling foul of the servants in a momentary fit of impatience, while they sat smiling all ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... military rifle lay in the rapid fouling of the barrel, which necessitated a bullet too small to expand sufficiently to fill the grooves; this resulted in inaccuracy. Even if the bullet were properly fitted, it became impossible to load when the barrel began to foul after a few discharges. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... they could see nothing. The air they breathed was hot and foetid. It was like being immured in a foul tunnel and almost as dark. Jenks looked over the parapet. He thought he could distinguish some vague figures on the sands, so he fired at them. A volley of answering bullets crashed into the rock on all sides. The Dyaks had laid their plans well this time. A ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... of this day are chronicled in the Diary of Brown—all couleur de rose,—the literal purport of which it would be tedious to repeat; suffice it to say, the aphorisms on the demise of the year ran foul of the "occasional memoranda," and were brought to a dead stop by the "general accounts;" not that his ideas stopped on paper, for he continued them in bed. Brown dreamed "his ship had come home;"—that he dwelt in a Belgravian palace; that he was an M.P.;—that he ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner

... corresponding to the "lazzarone" of Naples, who resembles the Mexican lepers in his social condition, and whose name implies the same thing; for, of course, Saint Lazarus is the patron saint of lepers and foul beggars. There are some few real lepers in Mexico, who are obliged by law to be shut up in this hospital. We rather expected to see something like what one reads of the treatment of lepers which prevailed in Europe until a few ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... or two dull odes from his pen. But if not witty at that time himself, he gave occasion to wit in others. Smollett, provoked, it is said, by some aspersions Akenside had in conversation cast on Scotland, and at all times prone to bitter and sarcastic views of men and manners, fell foul of him in "Peregrine Pickle." If our readers care for wading through that filthy novel—the most disagreeable, although not the dullest of Smollett's fictions—they will find a caricature of our poet in the character of the "Doctor," who talks nonsense about liberty, quotes and ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... foul history, happening to have a few inoffensive Danes on hand, on the 13th of November, the festival of St. Brice, 1002, he gave it out that he would massacre these people, among them the sister of the Danish king, a noble woman who had become a Christian (only it is to be hoped a better one), ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye

... ready to lend him a saddle-horse any day. Mr. and Mrs. Hurley, after making many pleasant acquaintances, had gone on to Denver, and Captain Buxton was congratulating himself that he, at least, had not run foul of the engineer's powerful fists. Buxton was not in arrest, for the case had proved a singular "poser." It occurred during the temporary absence of the colonel: he could not well place the captain under arrest for things he had done when acting as ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... face as clean as a man's face after shaving, and her body should be correspondingly clean, that the gases and odors may escape, lest they take revenge upon her face. A girl should no more offer a foul odor of body or mouth or nose, than she would ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley

... But see the man alone, unbent, A church-yard near, and twilight spent, Returning late to his abode, Upon an unfrequented road: No choice is left, his feet must tread The awful dwelling of the dead. In foul mist doth the pale moon wade, No twinkling star breaks thro' the shade: Thick rows of trees increase the gloom, And awful silence of the tomb. Swift to his thoughts, unbidden, throng Full many a tale, forgotten long, Of ghosts, who at the dead of ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie

... kind of dormitories these people resort to when their dancing is finished? I will describe one out of many that I saw, which will serve as a specimen of the rest. Let us ascend the rickety staircase. The atmosphere is intolerably foul, and you feel that a week's confinement in such a den would cause your death. Well, these are the beds; a heap of straw, matted with long service, and a filthily foul rug for a coverlet. The sleepers have no other covering, in summer or winter. These beds change their ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... troubles, his nerves were seriously affected, and though he was no coward, depression held him at times in its fell grip, and mocked him with delusive pictures of other men's happiness. Like Bunyan's poor tempted Christian, he, too, at times espied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him, and had to wage a deadly combat with many a doubt and hard, despairing thought. 'You are a wreck, Michael Burnett!' the grim tempter seemed to say to him. 'Better ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... than to have him perhaps turn criminal and prey upon society? He must leave the house he is in; he cannot get another without the money, and he is desperate; feels that five dollars he must have, by fair means or foul. Moreover, think of his wife and children, leaving him out of the question. Now let us open this little Bible, and see what meets our ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... slept together, and quarrelled together. Looking constantly for trouble, and thrown into actual contact with an object as convenient as Aaron Burr, it was inevitable that he should be made the butt of their coarse gibes and foul witticisms; and when these could not penetrate his calm, superior self-possession, it was just as inevitable that taunts should extend even to ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... direction. You all know enough to eat when you are hungry and to drink when you are thirsty, even though you don't always know when to stop, or just what to eat. You like sunny days better than cloudy ones, and would much rather breathe fresh air than foul. You like to go wading and swimming when you are hot and dusty, and you don't need to be told to go to sleep when you are tired. You would much rather have sugar than vinegar, sweet milk than sour milk; and you ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... there are no symptoms that the people of these provinces will be prepared to participate in constitutional government for some years, I know of no arrangement so proper for them as territorial governments. There they can learn the principles of freedom and eat the fruit of foul rebellion. Under such governments, while electing members to the territorial Legislatures, they will necessarily mingle with those to whom Congress shall extend the right of suffrage. In Territories, Congress fixes the qualifications of electors; ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... village and attacking those responsible for the outrage. It was as much as Max and Shaw could do to keep them from turning back and flinging away their lives in a desperate endeavour to exact reparation for the foul deed. ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill

... his chair and got to his feet, overcome by a choking sensation like that of being, asphyxiated by foul gases. He must get out at once, or faint. What he had seen in the man's eyes had aroused in him sheer terror, for it was the image of something in his own soul which had summarily gained supremacy and led him hither, unresisting, to its own abiding-place. In vain he groped ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... "And cold his last, expiring breath: "And now with aspect meek, "The infant lifts his mournful eye, "And asks with trembling voice, to die, "If death will cure his heaving heart of pain— "His heaving heart now bleeds— "Foul tyrant! o'er the gilded hour "That beams with all the blaze of power, "Remorse shall spread her thickest shroud; "The furies in thy tortur'd ear "Shall howl, with curses deep, and loud, "And wake ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams

... of them closer together than they should be;" and the next instant he exclaimed, "They're foul of each other! I feared that it would ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more? Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps, pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave; And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... said the Molimo, "but if they are foul-mouthed, I throw them out of my walls. Your message, men of ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... and have yielded to a decision of character that had no real existence in himself. But he did not know; indeed, how could he know? and he was, besides, too thorough a gentleman to allow himself to suspect foul play. And so, too sad for talk, and oppressed by the dread sense of coming separation from her whom he loved more dearly than his life, he sought his room, there to think and pace, to pace and think, until the stars ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... the King, and the Duke of Yorke concerned himself in it; but this fire hath stopped it. The Dutch fleete is not gone home, but rather to the North, and so dangerous to our Gottenburgh fleete. That the Parliament is likely to fall foul upon some persons; and, among others, on the Vice-chamberlaine, though we both believe with little ground. That certainly never so great a loss as this was borne so well by citizens in the world; he believing that not one merchant upon the 'Change will break upon it. That he do not apprehend ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... perceived through the fanlight an illumination in the hall. The door opened cautiously, as such doors always do open, and a middle-aged man in a dressing-gown stood before him. In the background he descried a small table with a candle on it, and the foul, polished walls of the ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett

... Charges affecting his character, both as a man and a minister, of the foulest and blackest kind, were transmitted to the Conference by a brother Missionary. To answer these charges, as false as they were foul, he was compelled to leave the churches he had planted and watered, to bid adieu to the people whose salvation had been for years the sole object of his life, and to undertake a voyage of 5,000 miles to appear before his ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... we have had very foul weather and we wish to send letters home; I do believe that we shall never ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... apparelled with massive chains. Besides these, he had a great number of gentlemen of his own suite, in blue velvet and crimson satin, as well as the mariners of his ship, in satin of Bruges (blue), both coats and slops of the same colour—his yeomen being clad in blue damask.' A foul wind detained the lady here for fifteen days, 'during which time, in order to afford her recreation, jousts and banquets were got up by the authorities.' The simplicity with which our gracious Queen travels from the Isle of Wight ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various

... sighs, heavily. "And yet that story was a foul lie! It is all that stands between us, Isabel. Is it not so? But you ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... have that five hundred dollars, or I am ruined. I must have it from him by fair means or foul, ere the light of another day dawns. I've borrowed a cool two thousand from him in four months. I wonder how much more he has laid by? I must have that five hundred, no matter what I have to resort to to ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey



Words linked to "Foul" :   foul line, back up, soil, unsporting, unclog, congest, cheating, unfair, obstruct, repelling, foetid, foul-mouthed, cruddy, close up, filthy, technical foul, smelly, fair, fouled, begrime, unclean, wicked, foul shot, noisome, offensive, dirty, unpleasant-smelling, malodorous, silt up, grime, tangled, disgusting, contaminate, stuff, skanky, crap up, change, smutty, repellant, foul play, impede, pollute, disgrace, ill-smelling, infect, foul-spoken, foul ball, foul-weather gear, personal foul, jam, play, obturate, defile, block, funky, occlude, bemire, ill-scented



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org