[f. prec. sb.; cf. mod.Ger. fohlen.]
1. trans. To bear or bring forth (a foal); said of a mare, she-ass, etc.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Friar’s T., 247.
| ‘The fend,’ quod he, ‘yow fech body and bones, | |
| As ferforthly as ever wer ye folid! |
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVIII. viii. (1495), 756. The asse foolyth selde two coltes.
1638. Sir R. Baker, trans. Letters of Mounsieur de Balzac, I. 71. One day as he was solemnizing his Office in the Church of Saint Sophia, one came and told him in his ear, that his Mare Phorbante had foaled a Colt; with which he was so ravished, that instantly without having the patience to finish his service, or to put off his Pontifical Robes, he left the mysteries in the midst, and ran to his stable to see the good news he had heard.
1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Colt, When your Colts are foalen you may let them run with their Dams till about Michaelmas.
1887. Miss Braddon, Like & Unlike, I. i. He would buy the maddest devil that was ever foaled if he fancied the shape and paces of the beast.
2. absol. or intr. To give birth to a foal.
1521. Test. Ebor. (Surtees), V. 129. I have ij mares wt foole, and, when they folyn, I gif the bettur to Maister Mownforthe.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 18. They [Asses] will not Fole in the sight of man, or in the light, but in darkness.
1707. Mortimer, Husb., 151. About September they take their Mares into the House again, where they keep them ’till they foal.
b. Of a ewe: To yean. ? U.S. only.
1883. P. E. Gibbons, English Farmers, in Harper’s Mag., LXVI. April, 652/2. The ewes are brought into the yard, and kept until they have foaled, but are often sent out almost immediately on to rye grass, or young rye.
3. To get (a mare) in foal. rare.
1891. T. H. Webster, Lett. to Chaplin, in Times, 9 Nov., 10/5. The horse … had foaled his mares well.
