| 释义 |
befoul, v.|bɪˈfaʊl|
[f. be- 5 + foul: a later formation, which ran parallel to befile in ME., and at length displaced it.]
trans. To make foul, cover with filth or dirt; often of moral filth; esp. in the proverbial to befoul one's own nest.
c1320Cast. Love 1147 Al was his face bi-foulet wt spot. c1430Syr Gener. 4610 The last he fond Darel Al be⁓fouled in the grauel. 1526Skelton Magnyf. 885, I befoule his pate. 1726Amherst Terræ Fil. v. 22 'Tis an ill bird which befouls his own nest. 1844Macaulay Chatham, Ess., Fox had stumbled in the mire, and had not only been defeated but befouled.
Hence beˈfouler, beˈfoulment.
1842Ld. Jeffrey in Napier's Corr. (1879) 388 A befouler of his own nest. 1862F. Hall Hind. Philos. Syst. 272 The ignorant..think the blueness of the sky to be the befoulment of ether. |