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defile

de·file

UK/dɪˈfaɪl/ US/ˈdiː-/ uncommon archaic obsolete rare
noun (1) verb (3)

noun

1.

a narrow pass (especially one between mountains)

Synonyms

verb

1.

place under suspicion or cast doubt upon

  • “sully someone”
Synonyms
2.

make dirty or spotty, as by exposure to air; also used metaphorically

  • “The silver was tarnished by the long exposure to the air”
  • “Her reputation was sullied after the affair with a married man”
Synonyms
3.

spot, stain, or pollute

  • “The townspeople defiled the river by emptying raw sewage into it”
Synonyms

Origin

From Late Middle English defilen (“to make dirty, befoul; rape; abuse; destroy; injure; oppress”) [and other forms], a variant of defoulen (“to make dirty, defile, pollute; have sexual intercourse with; rape; etc.”) (compare also defoilen). Defoulen is a blend of Middle English foulen (“to make dirty, soil, pollute”) (from the adjective foul (“dirty, rotten, stinking, corrupt, sinful, guilty”) and Old English fūlian (“to decay”)), and Old French defoler, defouler (“to trample, crush; destroy”), from de- (intensifying prefix) + foler, fouler, fuller (“to trample, tread on; mistreat, oppress, destroy”) (from Vulgar Latin fullāre (“to full (make cloth denser and firmer by soaking, beating, and pressing)”), from Latin fullō (“person who fulls cloth, fuller”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃- (“to blow; to inflate, swell; to bloom, flower”) or Etruscan 𐌘𐌖𐌋𐌖 (φulu)). The English word is analysable as de- + file (“to corrupt; defile”). The Middle English word defilen was probably formed from defoulen on the analogy of befilen (“to make dirty, befoul; corrupt; violate one's chastity; desecrate; slander”) and befoulen (“to make dirty, befoul; violat...

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.