defile

Plural: defiles

Noun

a narrow pass (especially one between mountains)
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.
An act of marching in files or lines.
A single file of soldiers; (by extension) any single file.
An act of defilading a fortress or other place, or of raising the exterior works in order to protect the interior.

Verb

Verb Forms: defiled, defiling, defiles

To make dirty or ritually impure; to corrupt.
place under suspicion or cast doubt upon
make dirty or spotty, as by exposure to air; also used metaphorically
spot, stain, or pollute
- "The townspeople defiled the river by emptying raw sewage into it"
To make (someone or something) physically dirty or unclean; to befoul, to soil.
To make (someone or something) morally impure or unclean; to corrupt, to tarnish.
To act inappropriately towards or vandalize (something sacred or special); to desecrate, to profane.
To cause (something or someone) to become ritually unclean.
To deprive (someone) of their sexual chastity or purity, often not consensually; to deflower, to rape.
To dishonour (someone).
To become dirty or unclean.
To cause uncleanliness; specifically, to pass feces; to defecate.
To march in a single file or line; to file.
To march across (a place) in files or lines.
Synonym of defilade (“to fortify (something) as a protection from enfilading fire”).

Examples

Some players feel it’s an insult to defile the game board with messy handwriting.
The serial rapist kidnapped and defiled a six-year-old girl.
To urinate on someone’s grave is an example of a way to defile it.

Origin / Etymology

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; violate one's chastity; vilify”), respectively from Old English befȳlan (“to befoul, pollute, defile, make filthy”) (compare also Middle English filen (“to make foul, impure, or unclean, pollute; pollute morally or spiritually; desecrate, profane; have sexual intercourse with; rape; etc.”)) and foulen (“to make dirty, pollute; become dirty; defecate; deface or deform; pollute morally or spiritually; damage, injure; destroy; treat unfairly, oppress; tread on, trample”). Filen and foulen are respectively from Old English fȳlan (“to befoul, defile, pollute”) and Old English fūlian (“to foul”), from Proto-West Germanic *fūlijan (“to make dirty, befoul”) and *fūlēn (“to become foul, decay”), both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *fūlaz (“dirty, foul; rotten”), from Proto-Indo-European *puH- (“foul; rotten”). See foul.
Cognates
* German Low German befulen (“to defile, sully”)
* Dutch bevuilen (“to defile, soil”)
* Scots befile (“to befoul, dirty”)
* West Frisian befûjle (“to soil”)

Synonyms

befoul, cloud, corrupt, foul, gorge, maculate, stain, sully, taint, tarnish, assoil, beclart, bedaub, bedirty, bedizen, befile, befilth, begrime, beray, besmear, besmirch, besully, bewray, blacken, blot, blur, clat, contaminate, darken, defilade, defile, denigrate, desecrate, dirty, drag through the mud, dull, elt, foil, gunk, gunk up, inquinate, pollute, profane, ravish, scunge, sling mud, slotter, slur, smirch, smudge, smutch, soil, soss, sowl, spoil, spot, sullow, uggle, violate, vitiate

Antonyms

clean, deconsecrate, desacralize, desecrate, dirty, hallow, profane, purify, sanctify, unbless, uncanonize, unhallow, unsaint

Scrabble Score: 10

defile: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Word
defile: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
defile: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 11

defile: valid Words With Friends Word