defile

Etymology 1

From Late Middle English defilen (“to make dirty, befoul; to contaminate (the body or an organ) with dirt or disease; to pollute morally or spiritually; to desecrate, profane; to violate (the sanctity of marriage, an agreement or oath, etc.); to rape; to slander; to abuse; to destroy; to injure; to treat unfairly, oppress”) [and other forms], a variant of defoulen (“to make dirty, defile, pollute; to contaminate (the body or an organ) with dirt or disease; to pollute morally or spiritually; to desecrate, profane; to violate (the sanctity of marriage, an agreement or oath, etc.); to have sexual intercourse with; to rape; etc.”) (compare also defoilen). Defoulen is derived from Old French defouler (“to trample; to oppress; to outrage; to pollute; to violate”), from de- (prefix indicating actions are done more strongly or vigorously) + fouler (“to trample, tread on; to mistreat, oppress”), foler (“to destroy; to mistreat”) (from Vulgar Latin fullare (“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 𐌖𐌋𐌖𐌘 (fulu)). The English word is analysable as de- (intensifying prefix) + file (“(archaic) to corrupt; to defile”). The Middle English word defilen was probably formed from defoulen on the analogy of befilen (“to make dirty, befoul; to corrupt; to violate one's chastity; to desecrate; to slander”) and befoulen (“to make dirty, befoul; to violate one's chastity; to vilify”),, respectively from filen (“to make foul, impure, or unclean, pollute; to pollute morally or spiritually; to desecrate, profane; to have sexual intercourse with; to rape; etc.”) and foulen (“to make dirty, pollute; to become dirty; to defecate; to deface or deform; to pollute morally or spiritually; to damage, injure; to destroy; to treat unfairly, oppress; to tread on, trample”). Filen and foulen are respectively from Old English fȳlan (“to befoul, defile, pollute”) and fūlian (“to foul”), both from Proto-West Germanic *fūlijan (“to make dirty, befoul”), from Proto-Germanic *fūlijaną (“to make dirty, befoul”), from *fūlaz (“dirty, foul; rotten”), from Proto-Indo-European *puH- (“foul; rotten”). cognates * Dutch bevuilen (“to defile, soil”)

verb

1. (transitive)
   1. To make (someone or something) physically dirty or unclean; to befoul, to soil.
      “That's only dirt—it will brush off.” But he looked at me with his haggard hopeless eyes and said— “It is mud. Black, slimy, horrible mud. I am defiled.” 1911 October, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Journey”, in The Forerunner: A Monthly Magazine, volume II, number 10, New York, N.Y.: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, →OCLC, page 271, column 1
   2. To make (someone or something) morally impure or unclean; to corrupt, to tarnish.
   3. To act inappropriately towards or vandalize (something sacred or special); to desecrate, to profane.
      To urinate on someone’s grave is an example of a way to defile it.
   4. (religion) To cause (something or someone) to become ritually unclean.
   5. (obsolete)
      1. To deprive (someone) of their sexual chastity or purity, often not consensually; to deflower, to rape.
         The serial rapist kidnapped and defiled a six-year-old girl.
      2. To dishonour (someone).
2. (intransitive, obsolete)
   1. To become dirty or unclean.
      [Y]ou vvill find if you do not daily ſvveep you houſes, they vvill defile; and the cob-vvebs they vvill grovv; the Spiders vvill be at vvork; and though your hearts be never ſo pure, Spiders vvill creep into them, […] 1672 January 16 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Caryl, “Sermon II”, in The Nature and Principles of Love, as the End of the Commandment.[…], London: […] John Hancock, Senior and Junior,[…], published 1673, →OCLC, page 79
   2. To cause uncleanliness; specifically, to pass feces; to defecate.

Etymology 2

PIE word *dwís , Chieti, Italy.]] The verb is borrowed from French défiler (“to march; to parade”), from dé- (prefix indicating actions are done more strongly or vigorously) + one or both of the following: * filer (“to thread through (a crowd)”) (from Late Latin filāre, from Latin fīlum (“fibre, filament, string, thread”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰiH-(s-)lo-). * file (“line of objects placed one after the other, file”), from filer (see above), or fil (“thread, yarn; wire”), from Old French fil, from Latin fīlum (see above). The noun is borrowed from French défilé (“parade, procession”), a noun use of the past participle of défiler (verb); see above.

verb

1. (intransitive, archaic) To march in a single file">file or line; to file">file.
   They [pigs] defiled down a gully to the water and bunched and jerked their noses at it and came back. 1979, Cormac McCarthy, Suttree (Vintage Contemporaries), New York, N.Y.: Vintage International, Vintage Books, published May 1992, page 138
2. (transitive, obsolete) To march across (a place) in files or lines.

noun

1. A narrow passage or way (originally (military), one which soldiers could only march through in a single file or line), especially a narrow gorge or pass between mountains.
   The next morning the enemy were on the march before him, seized the defiles, blocked the fords of the rivers, destroyed the bridges, and sent out cavalry to patrol the open ground, so as to oppose the Athenians at every step as they retreated. 1960, Plutarch, “Nicias [c. 470–413 b.c.]”, in Ian Scott-Kilvert, transl., The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives[…] (Penguin Classics; L102), London: Penguin Books, published 1967, →OCLC, page 239
   On the final stages of the run from Inverness Class 5 4-6-0 No. 45066 winds its train through narrow rock defiles alongside Loch Carron at the approach to Kyle of Lochalsh. 1962 January, “Motive Power Transition on the Kyle Line”, in Modern Railways, Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allen Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, photograph caption, page 17
2. (military)
   1. An act of marching in files or lines.
   2. A single file of soldiers; (by extension) any single file.

Etymology 3

The verb is borrowed from French défiler (“to arrange soldiers or fortify (something) as a protection from enfilading fire; to unthread”) (compare Middle French desfilher (“to unthread”)), from dé- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + enfiler (“to rake with gunfire, enfilade; to string on to a thread; to thread (a needle)”) (from en- (prefix meaning ‘in, into; on, on to’) + filer (verb) or file (noun); see etymology 2). The noun is derived from the verb.

verb

1. (transitive, military, rare) Synonym of defilade (“to fortify (something) as a protection from enfilading fire”)

noun

1. (military, rare) An act of defilading a fortress or other place, or of raising the exterior works in order to protect the interior.