[f. FOIL sb.1]
1. trans. To apply foil or a foil to.
† a. To spread over with a thin sheet of metal or other substance. See FOIL sb.1 4. In quot. fig.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., V. iii. § 16. Tales he hath taken out of the old fables of the Britaines, and by his owne inuention augmented with many vntruths, foiling them ouer with a new colour of the Latine tongue, and hath inuested them into the body of an history.
† b. To apply an amalgam of tinfoil and mercury to (glass, a mirror). See FOIL sb.1 4 b. Obs.
1714. Fr. Bk. of Rates, 83. Tin … to Foile Looking-Glasses.
1787. Gentl. Mag., Suppl. 1166/2. He could stain glass, foil mirrors, or silver looking-glasses.
c. 1790. Imison, Elements of Science and Art, II. 6. When this amalgam is used for foiling or silvering, let it first be strained through a linen rag.
1818. Blackw. Mag., III. 615/2. The great impediment to improvement and discovery in this branch of the science of optics has arisen from the difficulty of foiling glass to the various forms necessary.
c. To back (a crystal) with a foil. (FOIL sb.1 5).
1887. Archæologia, L. 110. Seemingly engraved on a crystal (?) foiled to resemble sapphire.
2. To set off by contrast. See FOIL sb.1 6.
1856. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., III. IV. iii. § 14. It [beauty] must be foiled by inferiority before its own power can be developed.
3. Arch. To ornament with foils.
1835. R. Willis, Archit. Mid. Ages, v. 41. At the same time there came in the practice of Foiling arches; that is, of uniting a series of three or more by their bases, so as to form one; which is termed a trefoil, quatrefoil, cinquefoil, and so on, according to the number of its component arches, or foils, as they may be termed.
1849. [see FOILING vbl. sb.1 b.]
Hence Foiler, one who foils.
1612. Woodall, The Surgeons Mate, Wks. (1653), 170–1. To beginne with Quicksilver, it is affirmed to be extreme cold of infinite Writers, and his repercussive qualitie sheweth the same, as also in repelling and cooleth hot tumours: with also the varietie of cold diseases and contractions Podagrical and Chirurgicall, procured thereby to divers Artificers which work much therewith, as namely to Guilders, Foilers of looking-glasses, and the like Trades-men, which sheweth the same to be cold.
