verb
Meaning 1
To make foul; to soil; to contaminate, pollute.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: literally
Examples
- 1897, Robert Gwynneddon Davies (translator), The Sleeping Bard by Ellis Wynne, London: Simplkon, Marshall & Co., Part I, At last, what with a round of blasphemy, and the whole crowd with clay pistols belching smoke and fire and slander of their neighbours, and the floor already befouled with dregs and spittle, I feared lest viler deeds should happen, and craved to depart.
- 1997, Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid, “Echo and Narcissus” in Paul Keegan (ed.), Ted Hughes: Collected Poems, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003, p. 919, There was a pool of perfect water. [...] No cattle Had slobbered their muzzles in it And befouled it.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: befile, befilth, foul, assoil, beclart, bedaub, bedirty, imbrue (especially with blood), bedizen, befoul, begrime, beray, beshit, besmear, besmirch, besully, bewray, blacken, blot, blur, clat, contaminate, darken, defile, dirten, dirty, elt, file, foil, gunk, gunk up, inquinate, scunge, sling mud, slotter, slur, smear, smirch, smudge, smut, smutch, soil, soss, sowl, spot, stain, sullow, sully, tarnish, uggle
Antonyms: none provided