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Foil   /fɔɪl/   Listen
noun
Foil  n.  
1.
Failure of success when on the point of attainment; defeat; frustration; miscarriage. " Nor e'er was fate so near a foil."
2.
A blunt weapon used in fencing, resembling a smallsword in the main, but usually lighter and having a button at the point. " Blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit, but hurt not." " Isocrates contended with a foil against Demosthenes with a word."
3.
The track or trail of an animal.
To run a foil,to lead astray; to puzzle; alluding to the habits of some animals of running back over the same track to mislead their pursuers.


Foil  n.  
1.
A leaf or very thin sheet of metal; as, brass foil; tin foil; gold foil.
2.
(Jewelry) A thin leaf of sheet copper silvered and burnished, and afterwards coated with transparent colors mixed with isinglass; employed by jewelers to give color or brilliancy to pastes and inferior stones.
3.
Anything that serves by contrast of color or quality to adorn or set off another thing to advantage. "As she a black silk cap on him began To set, for foil of his milk-white to serve." "Hector has a foil to set him off."
4.
A thin coat of tin, with quicksilver, laid on the back of a looking-glass, to cause reflection.
5.
(Arch.) The space between the cusps in Gothic architecture; a rounded or leaflike ornament, in windows, niches, etc. A group of foils is called trefoil, quatrefoil, quinquefoil, etc., according to the number of arcs of which it is composed.
Foil stone, an imitation of a jewel or precious stone.


verb
Foil  v. t.  (past & past part. foiled; pres. part. foiling)  
1.
To tread under foot; to trample. " King Richard... caused the ensigns of Leopold to be pulled down and foiled under foot." " Whom he did all to pieces breake and foyle, In filthy durt, and left so in the loathely soyle."
2.
To render (an effort or attempt) vain or nugatory; to baffle; to outwit; to balk; to frustrate; to defeat. "Her long locks that foil the painter's power."
3.
To blunt; to dull; to spoil; as, to foil the scent in chase.


Foil  v. t.  To defile; to soil. (Obs.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Foil" Quotes from Famous Books



... for my vain opposition. You are ingenious, Loredano, in Your modes of vengeance, nay, poetical, A very Ovid in the art of hating; 'Tis thus (although a secondary object, Yet hate has microscopic eyes), to you I owe, by way of foil to the more zealous, This undesired association ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... mercury on a tin foil, smoothly laid on a flat table, and rub it gently with a hare's foot. It soon unites itself to the tin, which then becomes very splendid, or is what they call quickened. A plate of glass is then cautiously, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... against brute force. We see him, now, a frail, inspired Shelleyan[15] democrat, pleading the Guelph cause before the great Ghibelline soldier Salinguerra,—as he had once pitted the young might of native song against the accomplished Troubadour Eglamor. Salinguerra is the foil of the political, as Eglamor of the literary, Sordello, and the dramatic interest of the whole poem focusses in those two scenes. He had enough of the lonely inspiration of genius to vanquish the craftsman, but too little of its large humanity to cope with the astute ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... his stomach will retain, he is driven to the conviction that there is something wrong, and that he had better see the doctor. The result of the young athlete's visit to the doctor was that he mournfully laid down the dumb-bells and the foil, eschewed gymnastics, and ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... in the highest form. It is of no use to ape it or to contend with it. Somewhat is possible of resistance, and of persistence, and of creation, to this power, which will foil ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson


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