different between befoul vs bewray

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

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b???e?/
• Rhymes: -e?

Etymology 1

From Middle English bewraien, bewreyen, biwreyen, from Old English *bewr??an, from Proto-Germanic *biwr?gijan? (“to speak about; tell on; inform of”), equivalent to be- +? wray. Cognate with Old Frisian biwr?gja (“to disclose, reveal”), Dutch bewroegen (“to blame; accuse”), Middle Low German bewr?gen (“to accuse; complain about; punish”), Old High German biruogen (“to disclose, reveal”), Modern German berügen (“to defraud”).

Verb

bewray (third-person singular simple present bewrays, present participle bewraying, simple past and past participle bewrayed)

1. (transitive, archaic) To accuse; malign; speak evil of.
2. (transitive) To reveal, divulge, or make (something) known; disclose.
   • 1594, Christopher Marlowe, Edward II, London: William Jones,^[1]

     His countenance bewraies he is displeasd.
   1. (transitive) To reveal or disclose and show the presence or true character of, especially if unintentionally or incidentally, or else if perfidiously, prejudicially, or to one's discredit.
      • 1567, Arthur Golding (translator), The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, entytuled Metamorphosis, Book 2, lines 539-40, p. 21,^[2]

        He tooke hir fast betwéene his armes, and not without his shame,

        Bewrayed plainly what he was and wherefore that he came.

      • 1580, John Lyly, Euphues and his England, London: Gabriell Cawood, p. 100,^[3]

        But to put you out of doubt that my wits were not all this while a wol-gathering, I was debating with my selfe whether in loue, it wer better to be constant, bewraying all the counsayles, or secret, being readye euery houre to flinch:

      • c. 1607, William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act V, Scene 3,^[4]

        Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment

        And state of bodies would bewray what life

        We have led since thy exile.

      • 1905, The Times, 22 August, page 6, col. A

        His very speeches bewray the man – intensely human, frank and single-hearted

   2. (transitive) To expose or rat out (someone).
      • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Matthew 26:73,^[5]

        And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee.

      • 1846, Introduction to Letter 40 in Henry Ellis (editor), Original Letters, Illustrative of English History, Third Series, Volume I, London: Richard Bentley, p. 100,^[6]

        While this busy search was diligently applied and put in execution, Humphrey Banaster (were it more for fear of loss of life and goods, or attracted and provoked by the avaricious desire of the thousand pounds) he bewrayed his guest and master to John Mitton, then Sheriff of Shropshire, [...]

      • 1890, The Times, 16 June, page 8, col. A

        I fear that if I was to attempt to detain you at length my speech would bewray me, and you would discover I was not that master of professional allusions which you might expect me to be.
   3. (transitive, obsolete) To expose to harm.
      • c. 1590, Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, London: Nicholas Vavasour, 1633, Act III,^[7]

        Though thou deseruest hardly at my hands,

        Yet neuer shall these lips bewray thy life.

   4. (transitive, obsolete) To expose (a deception).

Usage notes

This word is often glossed as being a synonym of "betray", but this is only valid for the senses of "betray" that involve revealing information.

Synonyms

• (to reveal): expose; see also Thesaurus:reveal or Thesaurus:divulge
• (to expose or rat out): inform, grass up, snitch; see also Thesaurus:rat out

Derived terms

• bewrayer
• bewrayingly
• bewrayment

Translations

Etymology 2

Variant of beray.

Verb

bewray (third-person singular simple present bewrays, present participle bewraying, simple past and past participle bewrayed)

1. (obsolete) To soil or befoul; to beray.
   • 1728, Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, London: A. Dodd, Book 2, p. 18,^[8]

     Obscene with filth the varlet lies bewray’d,

     Fal’n in the plash his wickedness had lay’d:

   • 1785, William Cowper, “Tirocinium” in The Task, London: J. Johnson, p. 324,^[9]

     Like caterpillars dangling under trees

     By slender threads, and swinging in the breeze,

     Which filthily bewray and sore disgrace

     The boughs in which are bred th’ unseemly race […]