Other forms: defiled, defiles, defiling
To defile is to make something sacred or clean unfit. Defile the temple, defiled the grave, defiled by it.
It is nearly always about desecration rather than dirt — what gets defiled is holy, pure or honoured — which is why the word is so heavy. There is a separate noun defile meaning a narrow pass between hills, from a French word about marching in file. Note filth, from the same old root as the verb.
1verbdefileTo make something sacred or clean unfit.
“The vandals defiled the church by spraying paint over the altar.”
2nounnarrowA narrow pass between hills.
“The small army held the defile between the mountains against a much larger enemy.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
defile is a desecrating, or a pass.
Middle English defilen is a variant of defoulen, to trample or pollute. The noun meaning a narrow pass is a different French word.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰleh₃-
Middle English
defilen — to make dirty, befoul; rape; abuse; destroy; injure; oppress
English, today
defile
Built from
From Late Middle English defilen (“to make dirty, befoul; rape; abuse; destroy; injure; oppress”)defelen, defoilen, defyle, 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- + 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 ett 𐌘𐌖𐌋𐌖). The English word is analysable as de- + file. 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 befȳlan (“to befoul, pollute, defile, make filthy”) (compare also 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. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA