Oh my word Foul, Fowl

Foul and fowl are pronounced in the same way but have different meanings. The midfielder was booked for a foul during a football match (noun). Foul has many meanings and it functions as a verb, noun and adjective. Foul as an adjective refers to bad smell, bad taste, dirty and disgusting; unpleasant, dreadful; evil or wicked; of weather: very rainy and windy, stormy and rough; of language: obscene and offensive; in sport: an action or act of the player against the rules, when he or she plays unfairly (a foul push in football).

Foul as a verb refers to dirtying, soiling, make something dirty, polluting, defiling, to smear. Foul one’s own nest is an idiom bringing disgrace; foul something up is a phrasal verb meaning to spoil something. Foully is an adverb and foul-mouthed is an adjective. Derivatives of foul are: fouls, fouling, fouled (verbs) and fouler & foulest (adjectives). Foul play is a crime, corruption, criminal violence that may lead to a murder or kidnap, and an action that is against the rules in a game or law.

By fair means or foul is an idiom. Yogendra Yadava was a rising star in AAP but he ran afoul of Arvind Kejriwal. Factories fouled the atmosphere in most of the rural areas. India has no laws to prevent pet dogs from fouling in the parks, but there is a Dog Fouling Act in England.

Pharmaceutical companies in Hyderabad are blamed for fouling the air. Careful people avoid the company of foul-mouthed (obscene and offensive language) colleagues. Fowl is a hen, a domestic cock. It also forms compound words such as waterfowl, wildfowl, and barnyard fowl. Go fowling (verb) refers to hunt or catch wildfowl, and other derivatives of fowl are: fowls, fowling, fowled.

Fowl pest is the disease that affects the chickens in poultry. She jumped aside, allowing the fowl avalanche to plunge down the trail.

Kovuuri G Reddy