soil

soil, dirty, sully, tarnish, foul, befoul, smirch, besmirch, grime, begrime can all mean to make or become unclean.

Soil basically implies fundamental defilement or pollution (as of the mind or spirit)

{

why war soils and disarranges whatever it touches, I cannot say— Kenneth Roberts

}

{

making that room our Chapter, our one mind where all that this world soiled should be refined— Masefield

}

but in much of its use it applies to a making or becoming superficially and literally unclean (as by spotting or staining or smudging)

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dressed in gray shirt and trousers appropriately soiled and wrinkled from a day's work— Maclnnes

}

In this sense the word is very close to the corresponding sense of dirty, which is slightly stronger in its implication of uncleanliness and especially of disagreeable uncleanliness; thus, "to soil one's clothes" may merely imply that the freshness of a clean or new thing is lost, but "to dirty one's clothes" usually implies some activity which has plainly left its unclean traces upon the garments. In its extended use, too, dirty tends to stress the unpleasant effect and typically suggests a making squalid or nasty of something that in itself is normal, wholesome, or clean

{

their religion took most of the rural whites' pleasures away from them, dirtying sex and the human body until it was a nasty thing— Lillian Smith

}

{

a burlesque which dirties the idea of chivalry— Canby

}

Sully implies the staining or soiling of something that is pure, fresh, limpid, or innocent

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they would not sully their fingers when eating human flesh— Elisofon

}

It is used more often in reference to immaterial or spiritual than to physical soiling

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if it is bounderish to traduce one's host, it is an even worse breach of etiquette to sully one's own nest— Guérard

}

{

those sins of the body which smear and sully , debase and degrade, destroy and ruin, condemn to the deepest pits of Hell— Farrell

}

{

a merciless massacre sullied the fame of his earlier exploits— J. R. Green

}

Tarnish basically implies the dulling or dimming of the luster of a thing by chemical action (as of air, dust, or dirt)

{

silver tarnished by the sulfur in egg yolk

}

In extended use it suggests a dimming rather than a total sullying of something of value

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with similar scandals ... it is not surprising that the image of state government is woefully tarnished— Armbrister

}

{

her tawdry, shoddy, garish components are exposed as never before; yet her overall beauty is scarcely tarnished— Temple Fielding

}

Foul and the intensive form befoul stress a making filthy or nasty and apply either to a material or an immaterial thing. They often suggest pollution or defiling by something highly offensive or disagreeable

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earth was scarred by mining pits and railway tracks; air was fouled and darkened by factory soot— J. D. Hart

}

{

it is senseless to foul our municipal personnel with unproved charges of general corruption— Moses

}

{

having befouled their own minds for hire, they made their living by befouling the minds of others— Anderson

}

{

Milton was . . . virtuous after befouling himself; once smeared with the sluttish filth of an evil woman, he had finally been won over— Styron

}

Smirch and the intensive form besmirch may emphasize a discoloring by or as if by soot, smoke, or mud; usually they come close to sully in implying a destruction of immaculateness

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now, with the singular ratiocination of the politician besmirched, he sought to go before the electorate and be washed whiter than snow by their votes—5. H.Adams

}

{

the parson's well-practiced and spellbinding condemnation of the besmirching, degrading, befouling, hideous, and bestial sins of the flesh— Farrell

}

but they seldom carry as clear an implication of an effect on real virtue or purity as they do of a darkening or blackening of appearance, reputation, honor, or good name

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their infamy spreads abroad, smirching the whole class to which they belong— Jefferies

}

{

as blackhearted a brigand as ever smirched a page of Highland history— Joseph

}

{

her reputation . . . was not smirched by gossip, for she was known to love her husband and to be virtuous— Bowers

}

Grime and the more usual begrime intensify the meaning of dirty and typically suggest deeply imbedded dirt often accumulated over a prolonged period

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a rudely cut inscription grimed with dust of many a year— Henry Phillips

}

{

she was always filthy, her legs grimed, her hair bedraggled, her face anything but clean— W. C. Williams

}

{

wearing a dress that virtually swept the street; that would in fact actually sweep it from time to time, battering and begriming the hem— F. L. Allen

}

{

they had stood, begrimed with train smoke— Stafford

}