Forms: 6 pl. ? foyelles (perh. mispr. for foylles), 6–7 foyl(e, 7– foil. [f. FOIL v.1 (sense 2); cf. OF. foulis, Cotgr. foulée, foulement in same sense, f. fouler FOIL v.1] The track of a hunted animal.
1576. Turberv., Venerie, 77. Marking all his tokens as well by the Slot as by the entries, foyelles, and such like.
1674. N. Cox, Gentl. Recreat., I. (1677), 72. The Dew will be beaten off, the Foil fresh, or the Ground broken or printed, with other Tokens: So he may judge his Game lately went that Way.
a. 1734. North, Lives, II. 353. Fellows at Plough have laughed, seeing the Dogs run one Way and the Hare another; and finding that sometimes the Dogs came about after her, have laid down upon the Foil, to prove whether the Dogs followed the Track or not, until they came up full Cry towards them.
1810. Sporting Mag., XXXV. Feb., 206/2. Having rounded the hill he crossed the foil.
1894. Scotsman, 27 Aug. 11/2. Mr. Davidson decided to lay the hounds on the foil of the otter first found.
fig. 1682. Otway, Venice Preserved, III.
| What, hunt | |
| A wife on the dull foil! |
1684. Southerne, Disappointment, I.
| When my full Veins are ebbing into Time; | |
| When Age shall level me to Impotence; | |
| And fleeting Pleasure leaves me on the Foyle. |
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, VII. iv. I think I was hard run enough by your mother for one man; but after giving her a dodge, here’s another b—— follows me upon the foil; but curse my jacket if I will be run down in this manner by an o’un.
1790. Wolcot (P. Pindar), Ode to Bruce, iii. Wks. 1812, II. 374.
| Safe from the fury of the Critic Hounds, | |
| O Bruce! thou treadest Abyssinian grounds; | |
| Nor can our British noses hunt thy foil. |
b. Phrases. To run (or † take) the foil, to run upon the foil: to run over the same track a second time (with the effect of baffling the hounds). To break her foil: to run out of the track after having doubled.
1601. The Description of Heauenly Ierusalem, in Farr, S. P. Eliz. (1845), II. 431.
| The chafed deare doth take the foyle; | |
| The tyred hare the thickes and wood: | |
| Be this the comfort of my toyle, | |
| My refuge, hope, and soueraigne good. |
1650. Fuller, A Pisgah-sight of Palestine, IV. iii. 44. No Hare, when hardly put to it by the hounds, and running foile, makes moe doublings and redoublings, then they fetcht compass, circuits, turns, and returns in this their intricate peregrination.
1781. P. Beckford, Hunting, xi. 150–1. It is so hot a foil, that in the best packs there are not many hounds that can hunt it; you must follow those hounds that can, and try to hit her off where she breaks her foil.
1797. Sporting Mag., XI. Nov., 87/2. The ground so stained by running the foil, that the scent lay with no certainty.
1828. Carr, Craven Gloss. (ed. 2), 158, s.v. ‘To run the foil,’ a phrase in hunting, used when a hare runs over the same track a second time in order to puzzle or elude the hounds.
transf. and fig. 1658. J. Harrington, Prerog. Pop. Govt., I. x. (1700), 289. To affirm that a Commonwealth was never conquer’d by any Monarch, and that a Commonwealth has conquer’d many Monarchs, or frequently led mighty Kings in triumph, is to run upon the foil.
1666. J. Smith, Old Age (ed. 2), 233. From whence it [the blood] is recommitted into the right ventricle of the Heart, to be chased the Foyl.
1878. Cumberld. Gloss., Suppl. s.v. ‘Runnin’ oald foils,’ following former courses.
