foule

See also: foulé

English

Adjective

foule (comparative more foule, superlative most foule)

1. Obsolete form of foul.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     The Patron of true Holinesse
      foule Errour doth defeate;
     Hypocrisie him to entrappe
      doth to his home entreate.

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French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ful/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ul
• Homophones: foulent, foules

Etymology 1

From Middle French foule (“group of men, people collectively”), alteration (due to Middle French foule (“act of treading”)) of Old French foulc (“people, multitude, crowd, troop”), from Vulgar Latin, from Frankish *folc, *fulc (“crowd, multitude, people”), from Proto-Germanic *fulką (“collection or class of people, multitude; host of warriors”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₁- (“to fill”). Cognate with Old High German folc (“people collectively, nation”), Old English folc (“common people, troop, multitude”). More at folk.

Noun

foule f (plural foules)

1. crowd

   Les psychologues sociaux ont développé plusieurs théories afin d’expliquer la façon dont la psychologie d’une foule diffère et interagit avec celle des individus en son sein.

   (please add an English translation of this usage example)

2. the thronging of a crowd
3. a great number, multitude, mass; host

Derived terms

• bain de foule

Etymology 2

From Middle French foule (“the act of milling clothes or hats”) and fouler (“to trample, mill, fordo, mistreat”), from Old French foler (“to crush, act wickedly”), from Latin fullō (“I trample, I full”). More at full.

Noun

foule f (plural foules)

1. the act or process of treading or milling
2. oppression, vexation

Verb

foule

1. inflection of fouler:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Anagrams

• floue

Further reading

• “foule”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

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German

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Verb

foule

1. inflection of foulen:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. first/third-person singular subjunctive I
   3. singular imperative

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Norman

Etymology

From Old French foulc (“people, multitude, crowd, troop”), from Vulgar Latin, from Frankish *folc, *fulc (“crowd, multitude, people”), from Proto-Germanic *fulką (“collection or class of people, multitude; host of warriors”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *pelə- (“to fill”).

Noun

foule f (plural foules)

1. (Jersey) crowd

Synonyms

• fliotchet