[f. FOUL a. + -NESS.]
1. A foul or dirty condition; dirtiness, impurity, pollution, uncleanness. Rarely pl.
1552. Huloet, Fowlenes or fylthines. sorditudo.
1582. N. T. (Rhem.), John xiii. Annot. The fovlnes of the fute … signifieth the earthie affections.
1667. Pepys, Diary (1877), V. 429. My wife and I fell out a little about the foulness of the linen of the table.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Fish, It is the Foulness of the Ponds only that stenches the Water; and therefore he would have the Ponds cleansed very often.
1744. Berkeley, Siris, § 4. It seemed probable, that a medicine of such efficacy in a distemper attended with so many purulent ulcers, might be also useful in other foulnesses of the blood.
1809–10. Coleridge, The Friend (1865), 214. He fiexed his eye on it with such intense eagerness as to neglect the foulness of the road.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxi. (1856), 271. The temperature and foulness of air in the between-deck Tartarus can not be amended.
fig. 1755. Young, Centaur, iv. Wks. 1757, IV. 194. Few know the foulness of their own hearts.
b. Of the weather: Storminess. Of a sea-bottom: Rockiness, roughness.
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turks (1621), 1028. Such was the foulenesse of the Winter weather, that he could not trauell with his great artillerie, without which no great matter was to be done against the enemie.
a. 1718. Penn, Wks. (1726), I. Life, 64. It being late, we made little Enquiry that Night, being also wearied with the Foulness of the Ways and Weather.
1748. Anson’s Voy., II. i. 115. To secure them [the cables] from being rubbed by the foulness of the ground.
c. concr. Foul matter; something that is or makes foul; a foul crust or deposit; filth; † a purulent affection (of the skin). Also pl.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVI. lii. (1495), 570. It … clensyth the eyen of fowlenes and fylthe.
1583. Hollyband, Campo di Fior, 25. Washe well the fowlenesse which is about the jointes of the fingers.
1641. Wilkins, Math. Magick, II. xii. (1680), 246. Of this nature likewise was that which the Ancients did call Linum vivum, or Asbestinum: of this they were wont to make garments that were not destroyed, but purified by fire; and whereas the spots or foulness of other cloaths are washed out, in these they were usually burnt away.
1740. Stack, in Phil. Trans., XLI. 424. If a glass Globe filled with Water be rapidly turned on its Axis, one sees little Foulnesses.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), II. 396. The dust and smoke of earth will continually throw a foulness upon our glass: yet may we keep ourselves watchful to brush off the soil as fast as falling, and not suffer it to gather in pitchy blotches upon the surface.
1782. W. Heberden, Comm., xxiii. (1806), 122. Crude quicksilver, which is perfectly mild to the touch, when divided with any tenacious substance, and applied in ointments and plasters, has been found considerably efficacious in cleansing the skin from many foulnesses.
1889. R. B. Anderson, trans. Rydberg’s Teut. Mythol., 214. The floors were made of serpents encased in foulness.
fig. a. 1654. Selden, Table-T. (Arb.), 18. ’Twas a good way to perswade men to be christned, to tell them that they had a Foulness about them, viz. Original Sin, that could not be washed away but by Baptism.
a. 1716. South, Serm. (1737), II. 199. It is the Wickedness of a whole Life, discharging all its filth and foulness into this one Quality, as into a great Sink, or Common Shore.
1790. G. Walker, Serm., II. xxx. 331. What horror, what debasing shame must sink the wretched soul, when foulnesses without number shall be revealed.
2. Moral impurity; disgusting wickedness.
c. 1532. Dewes, Introd. Fr., in Palsgr., 905. The foulenesse. la turpitude.
1578. T. Nicholas, trans. Conq. W. India (1596), 135. Many other grieuous sinnes so much here vsed, for the foulenesse whereof I name them not.
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, IV. i. 155.
| Would the Princes lie, and Claudio lie, | |
| Who lou’d her so, that speaking of her foulnesse, | |
| Wash’d it with teares? |
1624. Bacon, New Atlantis, Wks. 1857, III. 152. There is not under the heavens so chaste a nation as this of Bensalem; nor so free from all pollution or foulness.
1719. Young, Busiris, V. i.
| Base Boy! The Foulness of thy Guilt secures Thee | |
| From my Reproach, I dare not name thy Crime. |
1879. Farrar, St. Paul (1883), 208. Those umbrageous groves were the dark haunts of every foulness.
† 3. Ugliness, hideousness, repulsivseness. Obs.
1382. Wyclif, Bible, Pref. Ep. St. Jerome, vii. (1850), I. 73. I wole not, that thou be offendid in holi scripturis thurȝ symplenes, and as thurȝ foulnes of wordis.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XII. xxxii. (1495), 432. The pecok arereth his fethers … and thenne he … seeth the fowlenesse of his fete.
1600. Shaks., As You Like It, III. v. 66. Ros. Hees falne in loue with your foulnesse.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, VII. 580.
| sThe Fury laid aside | |
| Her Looks and Limbs, with new methods try’d, | |
| The foulness of th’ infernal Form to hide. |
† 4. Unfairness, dishonesty. Also, roughness, violence. Cf. FOUL a. 14, 17. Obs.
1523. Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. cccxxi. 202 a. The duke nor the constable wolde nat departe thens tyll they had ye castell at their wyll, outher with fayrnesse or foulnesse.
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., II. 150. Be fairnes ather be foulnes.
1654. Hammond, Fundamentals xi. 99. Piety is opposed to Hypocrisie and unsincerity, and all falsness or foulness of intensions.
