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foxing

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Foxing is the brown spots that age brings to old paper. Look for foxing.

Nobody is entirely sure of the cause, though iron in the paper and damp both play a part. Foxing lowers the value of a book and does no real harm to the paper itself.

Unknown · Public domain

Definitions of foxing

  1. 1nounfoxingThe brown spots that age brings to old paper.C2

    “The foxing had reached every page by the 1970s.”

foxing is a mark.

Where it comes from

  1. Middle English

    fox

  2. English

    fox

  3. English, today

    foxing

Built from

  • *puḱ- · Proto-Indo-European — tail

fox comes from Middle English fox. From Middle English fox, from Old English fox (“fox”), from Proto-West Germanic fuhs, from Proto-Germanic fuhsaz (“fox”), from Proto-Indo-European púḱsos (“the tailed one”), possibly from puḱ- (“tail”). 2

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Libraries & Museums

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