foxhole

foxhole noun: the burrow in the ground where a fox lives.

Noun

foxhole (plural foxholes)

The burrow in the ground where a fox lives.
A small pit dug into the ground as a shelter for protection against enemy fire.
- The statement made during the Second World War that “there are no atheists in foxholes” is absurd. Foxholes teem with atheists—who, to be sure, frequently infringe the Third Commandment in their desperation.1962, Hoxie Neale Fairchild, Religious Trends in English Poetry: 1880-1920: Gods of a Changing Poetry, Columbia University Press, page 378
- Four pilots from the St. Lo, returning from a strike, land at the Dulag Airstrip and are promptly handed carbines, given a foxhole, and told to help repel a Japanese infantry counterattack. With that job done, with the aid of some stacked boxes and buckets full of petrol, they rearm and repair...2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 36:27 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?, archived from the original on 03 Nov 2022

foxhole (third-person singular simple present foxholes, present participle foxholing, simple past and past participle foxholed)

(transitive) To dig a military foxhole into, or convert into a foxhole by digging.
- Trogh and Charlie have started foxholing one corner of our tent, and I helped them a little.1985, Luther H. Wolff, Forward surgeon: the diary of Luther H. Wolff, M.D., page 70
- The line was not foxholed in. This is one weakness of the Nungs. They resent digging and so they do not carry entrenching tools into the field.1988, Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall, A. L. Marshall, Ambush: The Battle of Dau Tieng, page 43
(transitive) To drive into a military foxhole.
- […] the vet recalled with terrible anguish a scene where he and his friend had been foxholed several dozen yards apart, with a small group of enemy soldiers (Viet Cong) coming toward them over the crest of a hill.2015, Teri Quatman, Essential Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: An Acquired Art

படைக்குழி

We had to dig out our foxhole while under fire.
" But Founder Daniels figured his foxhole gag might be a good idea.
The local drink had suffered badly at the hands of beer, cheap shōchūs and foreign spirits, and many makers were hunkered down in their foxholes, hoping only to survive.

Noun
plural	foxholes
alternative form	fox-hole
Verb
third-person singular present	foxholes
present participle	foxholing
past participle	foxholed
past	foxholed

From Middle English foxhol, from Old English foxhol, equivalent to fox + hole.

What does foxhole mean?: Foxhole means the burrow in the ground where a fox lives.
What is foxhole in Tamil?: Foxhole in Tamil is படைக்குழி. See Foxhole meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is foxhole?: Foxhole can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of foxhole?: The plural of foxhole is foxholes.

Adapted from Wiktionary: foxhole (page history and authors); foxhole (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-foxhole.wav.

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