Emily Dickinson Lexicon
Definition for FOUL'NESS
FOUL'NESS, n.
- The quality of being foul or filthy; filthiness; defilement.
- The quality or state of containing or being covered with any thing extraneous which is noxious or offensive; as, the foulness of a cellar, or of a well; the foulness of a musket; the foulness of a ship's bottom.
- Pollution; impurity. There is not so chaste a nation as this, nor so free from all pollution or foulness. Bacon.
- Hatefulness; atrociousness; as the foulness of a deed.
- Ugliness; deformity. The foulness of th' infernal form to hide. Dryden.
- Unfairness; dishonesty; want of candor. Piety is opposed to hypocrisy and insincerity, and all falseness or foulness of intentions. Hammond.
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