foule

See also: foulé

English

Adjective

foule (comparative more foule, superlative most foule)

1. Obsolete form of foul.
   • 1590 Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto I:

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

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. first-person singular present indicative of fouler
2. third-person singular present indicative of fouler
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of fouler
4. first-person singular present subjunctive of fouler
5. second-person singular imperative of fouler

Anagrams

• floue

Further reading

• “foule” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

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German

Verb

foule

1. First-person singular present of foulen.
2. First-person singular subjunctive I of foulen.
3. Third-person singular subjunctive I of foulen.
4. Imperative singular of foulen.

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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