Word.ws English Dictionary

afoul

/əˈfaʊl/

afoul adverb: in a state of collision or entanglement.

afoul: Silhouette of a person fishing at sunset by the ocean
Photo by Aldo Vukaj on Unsplash

Adverb

afoul (comparative more afoul, superlative most afoul)

  1. (archaic, principally nautical) In a state of collision or entanglement.
    • The ships’ lines and sails were all afoul.
    • After paying out chain, we swung clear, but our anchors were no doubt afoul of hers.1840, Richard Henry Dana Jr., chapter 15, in Two Years Before the Mast, New York: Harper & Bros., page 137
  2. (with-of) In a state of entanglement or conflict (with).
    • He had a knack for running afoul of the law.
    • What the devil’s the matter with me? I don’t stand right on my legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong side out.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 20”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

Examples of afoul in a sentence

  • A hemispheric axiom has it that when a dictator falls afoul of Washington, his opponents are emboldened to try to topple him.1957 December 15, “Still in Business”, in Time:
  • Kings came to hear [Vivaldi’s] concerts but in the end he ran afoul of the Pope’s nuncio and fell out of favor, presumably for neglecting to say Mass […]1979, Bernard Malamud, chapter 2, in Dubin’s Lives, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, page 79:
  • He committed acts which put him afoul of Empire law, details classified, twenty-six years ago.1993, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, The Gripping Hand, New York: Pocket Books, published 1994, Part 1, Chapter 3, p. 28:

All 11 example sentences with afoul

Forms of afoul

comparativemore afoul
superlativemost afoul

Origin of afoul

From a- + foul.

Words formed from afoul

Phrases with afoul

Words that rhyme with afoul

15 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about afoul

What does afoul mean?
Afoul means in a state of collision or entanglement.
How do you use afoul in a sentence?
A hemispheric axiom has it that when a dictator falls afoul of Washington, his opponents are emboldened to try to topple him.
What part of speech is afoul?
Afoul is an adverb.
How do you pronounce afoul?
Afoul is pronounced /əˈfaʊl/.

Words near afoul in the dictionary

  1. aforewrit
  2. aforewritten
  3. aformentioned
  4. afortiori
  5. AFOs
  6. afoul
  7. afoveate
  8. afovirsen
  9. afoxe
  10. afoxolaner
  11. AFP

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: afoul (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “afoul.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/afoul. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.