defile

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dɪˈfaɪl/, /ˈdiː-/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /dəˈfaɪl/, /ˈdiˌfaɪl/
• Rhymes: -aɪl
• Hyphenation: de‧file

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”) ,^[1] 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.”)^[2] (compare also defoilen).^[3] 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 𐌘𐌖𐌋𐌖 (φulu)).^[4] 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^[4] of befilen (“to make dirty, befoul; to corrupt; to violate one's chastity; to desecrate; to slander”)^[5] and befoulen (“to make dirty, befoul; to violate one's chastity; to vilify”),^[6] 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.”)^[7] 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”).^[8] 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”).

defile (third-person singular simple present defiles, present participle defiling, simple past and past participle defiled)

1. (transitive)
   1. To make (someone or something) physically dirty or unclean; to befoul, to soil.

      Synonyms: contaminate, pollute, spoil, sully; see also Thesaurus:dirty

      Antonyms: clean, purify; see also Thesaurus:make clean

      • 1549 April 22 (Gregorian calendar), Hughe Latymer [i.e., Hugh Latimer], Augustine Bernher, compiler, “.] The Syxte Sermon of Maister Hugh Latymer, whiche He Preached before K. Edward , the XII. Day of Aprill.”, in Certayn Godly Sermons, Made uppon the Lords Prayer, , London: John Day, , published 1562, →OCLC, folio 71, verso:

        […] It is an euil birde that defiles his owne neſt, […]

      • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Job 16:15, column 1:

        I have ſowed ſackcloth vpon my ſkin, and defiled my horne in the duſt.

      • 1855, William H Prescott, “Protestantism in Spain”, in History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, volume I, Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, →OCLC, book II, page 446:

        Spain might now boast that the stain of heresy no longer defiled the hem of her garment. But at what a price was this purchased!

      • 1887, Robert Louis Stevenson, “A Portrait”, in Underwoods, London: Chatto and Windus, , →OCLC, book I (In English), page 63:

        At mankind's feast, I take my place / In solemn, sanctimonious state, / And have the air of saying grace / While I defile the dinner plate.

      • 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:

        “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.”

   2. To make (someone or something) morally impure or unclean; to corrupt, to tarnish.
      • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt  (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, The Gospell off S. Marke vij:, folio liiij, recto:

        here is no thynge with outt a man that can diffyle hym when hitt entreth in to hym⸝ but thoo thyngꝭ which procede out of a mã are thoſe which defyle a mã.

      • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: , London: Nath Ponder , →OCLC, pages 89–90:

        Chr. VVhy, I tro you did not conſent to her deſires? / Faith[full]. No, not to defile my ſelf; for I remembred an old vvriting that I had ſeen, vvhich ſaith, Her ſteps take hold of Hell. [Proverbs 5:5] So I ſhut mine eyes, becauſe I vvould not be bevvitched with her looks: [Job 31:1] then ſhe railed on me, and I vvent my vvay.

   3. To act inappropriately towards or vandalize (something sacred or special); to desecrate, to profane.

      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:desecrate

      Antonyms: hallow, sanctify; see also Thesaurus:consecrate

      To urinate on someone’s grave is an example of a way to defile it.

      • 1535 October 14 (Gregorian calendar), Myles Coverdale, transl., Biblia: The Byble,  (Coverdale Bible), : , →OCLC, II. Cronicles xxxvj:, folio cvi, verso, column 1:

        And all yͤ chiefe amonge the preſtes, and the people, multiplyed their ſynnes, acordinge to all the abhominacions of the Heythen, and dyfyled the houſe of the LORDE, which he had ſanctified at Jeruſalem.

      • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Nehemiah 13:29, column 2:

        Remember them, O my God, becauſe they haue defiled the Prieſthood, and the couenant of the Prieſthood, and of the Leuites.

   4. (religion) To cause (something or someone) to become ritually unclean.
      • 1535 October 14 (Gregorian calendar), Myles Coverdale, transl., Biblia: The Byble,  (Coverdale Bible), : , →OCLC, Leuiticus xj:[41 and 43–44], folio xlvi, verso, column 2:

        What ſo euer crepeth vpon earth, ſhall be an abhominacion vnto you, and ſhal not be eaten. […] Make not youre ſoules abhominable, and defyle you not in them, to ſtayne youre ſelues: for I am the LORDE youre God. Therfore ſhal ye ſanctifie youre ſelues, that ye maye be holy, for I am holy. And ye ſhal not defyle youreſelues on eny maner of crepynge beeſt, that crepeth vpon earth: […]

      • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Leviticus 22:8, column 2:

        That which dieth of it ſelfe, or is torne with beaſts, hee ſhall not eate to defile himſelfe therewith: I am the Lord.

   5. (obsolete)
      1. To deprive (someone) of their sexual chastity or purity, often not consensually; to deflower, to rape.

         Synonyms: ravish, violate, (archaic) vitiate

         The serial rapist kidnapped and defiled a six-year-old girl.

         • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Genesis 34:2, column 2:

           And when Shechem the ſonne of Hamor the Hiuite, prince of the countrey ſaw her [Dinah], he tooke her, and lay with her, and defiled her.

         • 1718, Mat Prior, “Solomon on the Vanity of the World. A Poem in Three Books.”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: Jacob Tonson , and John Barber , →OCLC, page 490:

           VVhat Tongue can ſpeak the reſtleſs Monarch's VVoes; / VVhen GOD, and Nathan vvere declar'd his Foes? / VVhen ev'ry Object his Offence revil'd, / The Husband murder'd, and the VVife defil'd, / The Parent's Sins impreſs'd upon the dying Child?

         • 1769, William Blackstone, “Of Offences against the Persons of Individuals”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book IV (Of Public Wrongs), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 208:

           The ſecond offence, more immediately affecting the perſonal ſecurity of individuals, relates to the female part of his majeſty's ſubjects; being that of their forcible abduction and marriage; which is vulgarly called ſtealing an heireſs. For by ſtatute 3 Hen. VII. c. 2. it is enacted, that if any perſon ſhall for lucre take any woman, maid, widow, or wife, having ſubtance either in goods or lands, or being heir apparent to her anceſtors, contrary to her will; and afterwards ſhe be married to ſuch miſdoer, or by his conſent to others, or defiled; ſuch perſon, and all his acceſſories, ſhall be deemed principal felons: […]

      2. To dishonour (someone).
         • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame.  (First Quarto), London: for Thomas Fisher, , published 1600, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

           Come recreant, come thou childe, / Ile vvhippe thee vvith a rodde. He is defil'd, / That dravves a ſvvord on thee.

         • 1708 December 15 (Gregorian calendar; date written), [Jonathan Swift], A Letter from a Member of the House of Commons in Ireland to a Member of the House of Commons in England, Concerning the Sacramental Test, London: John Morphew , published 1709, →OCLC, page 7:

           is Character may be Defiled by ſuch Men and dirty Hands as thoſe of the Obſervator, or ſuch as employ him, […]

2. (intransitive, obsolete)
   1. To become dirty or unclean.
      • 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:

        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, […]

   2. To cause uncleanliness; specifically, to pass feces; to defecate.
      • c. 1597 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The History of Henrie the Fourth; , quarto edition, London: P S for Andrew Wise, , published 1598, →OCLC, [Act II, scene v]:

        There is a thing Harry, vvhich thou haſt often heard of, and it is knovvne to many in our land by the name of pitch. This pitch (as ancient vvriters do report) doth defile, ſo doth the companie thou keepeſt: […]

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:^[9]

• 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.^[10]

defile (third-person singular simple present defiles, present participle defiling, simple past and past participle defiled) (military, also figuratively)

1. (intransitive, archaic) To march in a single file or line; to file.
   • 1754, David Hume, “[Charles I.] Chapter II.”, in The History of Great Britain, under the House of Stuart, 2nd edition, volume I, London: A Millar, , published 1759, →OCLC, page 332:

     Without delay, he briſkly attacked them, as they were defiling from a lane and forming themſelves.

   • 1762, David Hume, “[John.] Chapter VII.”, in The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Accession of Henry VII, volume I, London: A Millar, , →OCLC, page 393:

     Several bodies of troops defiled towards the frontiers under various pretences; and the whole being ſuddenly aſſembled, formed an army with which the duke of Guiſe [Francis, Duke of Guise] made an unexpected march towards Calais.

   • 1855, William H Prescott, “Protestantism in Spain”, in History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, volume I, Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, →OCLC, book II, page 428:

     As the multitude defiled into the square, the inquisitors took their place on the seats prepared for their reception.

   • 1979, Cormac McCarthy, Suttree (Vintage Contemporaries), New York, N.Y.: Vintage International, Vintage Books, published May 1992, →ISBN, page 138:

     They defiled down a gully to the water and bunched and jerked their noses at it and came back.

2. (transitive, obsolete) To march across (a place) in files or lines.

defile (plural defiles)

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.
   • 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, , London: W Taylor , →OCLC, page 353:

     VVe had one dangerous Place to paſs, vvhich our Guide told us, if there vvere any more VVolves in the Country, vve ſhould find them there; and this vvas in a ſmall Plain, ſurrounded vvith VVoods on every Side, and a long narrovv Defile or Lane, vvhich vve vvere to paſs to get through the VVood, and then vve ſhould come to the Village vvhere vve vvere to lodge.

   • 1776, Edward Gibbon, chapter XIV, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume I, London: W Strahan; and T Cadell, , →OCLC, page 437:

     Conſtantine had taken poſt in a defile about half a mile in breadth, between a ſteep hill and a deep moraſs, and in that ſituation he ſteadily expected and repulſed the firſt attack of the enemy.

   • 1818, Lord Byron, “Canto IV”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Fourth, London: John Murray, , →OCLC, stanza LXII, page 34:

     […] I roam / By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles / Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home; […]

   • 1922 (date written; published 1926), T E Lawrence, “Book III: A Railway Diversion. Chapter XXVIII.”, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Company, published 1937, →OCLC, page 168:

     hese granite hills, thousands of feet high, were impracticable for heavy troops: the passes through them being formidable defiles, very costly to assault or cover.

   • 1960, Plutarch, “Nicias ”, 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:

     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.

   • 1962 January, “Motive Power Transition on the Kyle Line”, in Modern Railways, Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allen Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, photograph caption, page 17:

     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.

   • 2023 November 15, Dr Joseph Brennan, “A crucial part of our nation's defences”, in RAIL, number 996, page 60:

     "For the first time in 125 years a powerful enemy was now established across the narrow waters of the English Channel. ... Many people must have been bewildered by the innumerable activities all around them. They could understand the necessity for wiring and mining the beaches, the anti-tank obstacles at the defiles, the concrete pillboxes at the cross-roads, the intrusions into their houses to fill an attic with sandbags, on to their golf-courses or most fertile fields and gardens to burrow out some wide anti-tank ditch." So wrote Winston Churchill in Their Finest Hour, published in 1949.

2. (military)
   1. An act of marching in files or lines.
   2. A single file of soldiers; (by extension) any single file.

• (sense 1): defilé, defilee
• (sense 2.1): défilé

• defilade
• defilement
• enfilade
• enfile

• glen

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).^[11]

The noun is derived from the verb.^[12]

defile (third-person singular simple present defiles, present participle defiling, simple past and past participle defiled)

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

• defilement

defile (plural defiles)

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

• defile (geography) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• marching on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• delfie, e-filed

Internationalism, borrowed from Dutch defilé, from French défilé, from défiler (“to march past”), from file (“file”).

• IPA^(key): /deˈfile/
• Hyphenation: dé‧fi‧lé
• Rhymes: -le, -e

défilé (plural defile-defile)

1. parade; procession; march-past

   Synonym: parade

• “defile” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

From French défilé.

• IPA^(key): /defǐleː/
• Hyphenation: de‧fi‧le

defìlē m (Cyrillic spelling дефѝле̄)

1. march-past

• “defile”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2024

Borrowed from French défilé.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /de.fiˈle/, /de.fiːˈle/
• Hyphenation: de‧fi‧le

defile (definite accusative defileyi, plural defileler)

1. A fashion parade where models walk on stage to promote clothes.
2. A fashion show.

• “defile”, in Turkish dictionaries, Türk Dil Kurumu
• Çağbayır, Yaşar (2007) “defile”, in Ötüken Türkçe Sözlük (in Turkish), Istanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat, page 1125