foulness
noun
the state or quality of being foul.
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wofulness.
foulness
American
[foul-nis]
/ ˈfaʊl nɪs /
noun
-
the state or quality of being foul.
The foulness of the accusation incensed us all.
-
something that is foul; foul matter; filth.
foulness
1
British
/ ˈfaʊlnɪs /
noun
-
the state or quality of being foul
-
obscenity; vulgarity
-
viciousness or inhumanity
-
foul matter; filth
Foulness
2
British
/ faʊlˈnɛs /
noun
Etymology
Origin of foulness
before 1150; Middle English; Old English fūlnes. See foul, -ness
Vocabulary lists containing foulness
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A romp in the swamp or failure in the foulness of a Rome afternoon?
From BBC ● Feb. 7, 2026
In the decades since, though, the main charge against the show hasn’t been foulness so much as incoherence.
From New York Times ● Oct. 28, 2023
My entirely inadequate advice will remain unchanged: Sit in the foulness of the roiling storm and do your work, whatever that may be, and triangulate by the light of whatever star feels eternal to you.
From Slate ● Nov. 4, 2022
How does she have time to throw such petty foulness into the town square?
From Washington Post ● Nov. 30, 2021
I do not think words can do justice to a description of the foulness and filthiness of this bedding.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
The Broomway is a route across flat sands from the shore near Southend-on-Sea to Foulness Island and is home to a Ministry of Defence firing range.
From BBC ● Feb. 15, 2026
Foulness, for the most part, wins the day, and thus the beautiful paean, by Duncan and Banquo, to the home of the Macbeths—“a pleasant seat,” where “the air is delicate”—is expunged.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 7, 2015
In East Yorkshire there is a flood alert on the River Foulness and Market Weighton canal.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2012
It seems they expected from thence to dispel the Thickness and Foulness of the Air.
From A Discourse on the Plague by Mead, Richard
For after the sailors could no longer come up the Thames, they came on to the Essex coast, to Harwich and Walton and Clacton, and afterwards to Foulness and Shoebury, to bring off the people.
From The War of the Worlds by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
