different between stain vs befoul

English

Etymology

From Middle English steinen, steynen (“to stain, colour, paint”), of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse steina (“to stain, colour, paint”), from steinn (“stone, mineral blue, colour, stain”), from Proto-Norse ??????? (stainaz), from Proto-Germanic *stainaz (“stone”), from Proto-Indo-European *steyh?- (“to stiffen”). Cognate with Old English st?n (“stone”). More at stone.

Replaced native Middle English wem (“spot, blemish, stain”) from Old English wem (“spot, stain”).

In some senses, influenced by unrelated Middle English disteynen (“to discolor, remove the colour from"; literally, "de-colour”), from Anglo-Norman desteindre (“to remove the colour from, bleach”), from Old French destaindre (“to remove the color from, bleach”), from des- (“dis-, de-, un-”) + teindre (“to dye”), from Latin tingo.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ste?n/
• Rhymes: -e?n

Noun

stain (plural stains)

1. A discoloured spot or area.
2. A blemish on one's character or reputation.
3. A substance used to soak into a surface and colour it.
4. A reagent or dye used to stain microscope specimens so as to make some structures visible.
5. (heraldry) Any of a number of non-standard tinctures used in modern heraldry.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

stain (third-person singular simple present stains, present participle staining, simple past and past participle stained)

1. (transitive) To discolour.

   to stain the hand with dye

   armour stained with blood

2. To taint or tarnish someone's character or reputation
3. To coat a surface with a stain

   to stain wood with acids, coloured washes, paint rubbed in, etc.

   the stained glass used for church windows

4. (intransitive) To become stained; to take a stain.
5. (transitive, cytology) To treat (a microscopic specimen) with a dye, especially one that dyes specific features
6. To cause to seem inferior or soiled by comparison.

   • She stains the ripest virgins of her age.

   • c. 1591-1592, Edmund Spenser, Daphnaïda. An Elegy upon the Death of the Noble and Vertuous Douglas Howard, Daughter and Heire of Henry Lord Howard, Viscount Byndon, and Wife of Arthure Gorges Esquier

     that did all other beasts in beauty stain

Translations

Anagrams

• Astin, Insta, Saint, Santi, Sinta, Tanis, Tians, antis, insta-, saint, sat in, satin, stian, tians, tisan

Gothic

Romanization

stain

1. Romanization of ????????????????????

Gutnish

Etymology

From Old Norse steinn (“stone”), from Proto-Norse ??????? (stainaz), from Proto-Germanic *stainaz (“stone”). Cognate with English stone, German Stein, Dutch steen, Danish sten, Norwegian Bokmål sten, Norwegian Nynorsk stein, Swedish sten, Faroese steinur, West Frisian stien, Low German Steen. Ultimately from Pre-Germanic *stoyh?nos, o-grade from Proto-Indo-European *steyh?- (“to stiffen”).

Noun

stain m

1. stone, rock, as material or individual piece of rock or pebble

Middle English

Adjective

stain

1. Alternative form of stonen

Westrobothnian

Etymology

From Old Norse steinn (“stone”), from Proto-Norse ??????? (stainaz), from Proto-Germanic *stainaz (“stone”). Cognate with English stone, German Stein, Dutch steen, Danish sten, Norwegian Bokmål sten, Norwegian Nynorsk stein, Swedish sten, Faroese steinur, West Frisian stien, Low German Steen. Ultimately from Pre-Germanic *stoyh?nos, o-grade from Proto-Indo-European *steyh?- (“to stiffen”).

Noun

stain m

1. stone, rock, as material or individual piece of rock or pebble

Alternative forms

• stäin
• stejn

English

Etymology

be- +? foul

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b??fa?l/
• Rhymes: -a?l

Verb

befoul (third-person singular simple present befouls, present participle befouling, simple past and past participle befouled)

1. To make foul; to soil; to contaminate, pollute.
   • 1846, Charles Dickens, Pictures from Italy, London: for the author, “Avignon to Genoa,” p. 34,^[1]

     These heights are a desirable retreat, for less picturesque reasons—as an escape from a compound of vile smells perpetually arising from a great harbour full of stagnant water, and befouled by the refuse of innumerable ships with all sorts of cargoes: which, in hot weather, is dreadful in the last degree.

   • 1897, Robert Gwynneddon Davies (translator), The Sleeping Bard by Ellis Wynne, London: Simplkon, Marshall & Co., Part I,^[2]

     At last, what with a round of blasphemy, and the whole crowd with clay pistols belching smoke and fire and slander of their neighbours, and the floor already befouled with dregs and spittle, I feared lest viler deeds should happen, and craved to depart.

   • 1983, Mary Stewart, The Wicked Day, New York: William Morrow, Chapter 5, p. 53,^[3]

     Only the four walls of his home still stood, blackened and smoking with the sluggish, stinking smoke that befouled the sea-wind.

   • 1997, Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid, “Echo and Narcissus” in Paul Keegan (ed.), Ted Hughes: Collected Poems, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003, p. 919,^[4]

     There was a pool of perfect water.

     […] No cattle

     Had slobbered their muzzles in it

     And befouled it.

2. (specifically) To defecate on, to soil with excrement.
   • 1666, George Alsop, A Character of the Province of Mary-Land, London: Peter Dring, Preface,^[5]

     For its an ill Bird will befoule her own Nest […]

   • 1748, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random, London: J. Osborn, Volume I, Chapter 12, p. 91,^[6]

     “ […] But pray what smell is that? Sure your lapdog has befoul’d himself;—let me catch hold of the nasty cur, I’ll teach him better manners.”

3. (figuratively) To stain or mar (for example with infamy or disgrace).
   • 1894, Hall Caine, The Manxman, London: Heinemann, Part 5, p. 282,^[7]

     For three days Pete bore himself according to his wont, thinking to silence the evil tongues of the little world about him, and keep sweet and alive the dear name which they were waiting to befoul and destroy.

   • 1923, James Branch Cabell, The High Place, London: John Lane, Part 2, Chapter 15,^[8]

     “ […] you combine a vulgar atheism and an iconoclastic desire to befoul the sacred ideas of the average man or woman, collectively scorned as the bourgeoisie——”

   • 1927, Frances Noyes Hart, The Bellamy Trial, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1929, Chapter 5, p. 159,^[9]

     There she sits before you, gentlemen, betrayed by her husband, befouled by every idle tongue that wags […]

4. To entangle or run against so as to impede motion. (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

Synonyms

• (stain or mar): besmirch, sully, tarnish

Related terms

• afoul

Translations