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FOUL

Volume 1 · 238 words · 1810 Edition

or Foule, in the sea language, is used when a ship has been long untrimmed, so that the grats weeds, or barnacles, grow to her sides under water. A rope is also foul when it is either tangled in itself, or hindered by another, so that it cannot run or be overhauled.

Foul imports, also, the running of one ship against another. This happens sometimes by the violence of the wind, and sometimes by the carelessness of the people on board, to ships in the same convoy, and to ships in port by means of others coming in. The damages occasioned by running foul, are of the nature of those in which both parties must bear a share. They are usually made half to fall upon the sufferer, and half upon the vessel which did the injury; but in cases where it is evidently the fault of the master of the vessel, he alone is to bear the damage.

Foul-Water. A ship is said to make foul water, when, being under sail, she comes into such shoal water, that though her keel do not touch the ground, yet it comes so near it, that the motion of the water under her raises the mud from the bottom.

Foul is also a disease in cattle, proceeding from blood, and a watery rheum that falls down into the legs, and makes them swell.

Foul or Pimpled Face. See Guvna Rosacea.