Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Soiling or the condition of being soiled.
- noun A blot, stain, or smudge.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act of soiling, or the state of being soiled; stain or staining; tarnish or tarnishing.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Stain; pollution.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Making or becoming
dirty ;soiling ,staining .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the act of soiling something
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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All hearts sink; Latinus goes with torn raiment, in dismay at his wife's doom and his city's downfall, defiling his hoary hair with soilure of sprinkled dust.
The Aeneid of Virgil 70 BC-19 BC Virgil
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Elysium, some few of us to possess the happy fields; till length of days completing time's circle takes out the ingrained soilure and leaves untainted the ethereal sense and pure spiritual flame.
The Aeneid of Virgil 70 BC-19 BC Virgil
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Then go all over the ham with a dull knife, scraping off every bit of removable grease or soilure.
Dishes & Beverages of the Old South Martha McCulloch-Williams
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We see in all his private and political life "the soilure of his revolutionary origin," — proofs that he loved money and power far more than he loved honor, and himself far more than his country or mankind.
The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II Various
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For a few years his power increased, without one base measure, without any soilure on the blazon of increasing prosperity.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 11, No. 27, June, 1873 Various
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Insanely he switched on the electric torch and flashed it up and down the niche, though in the dazzling moonlight its rays were but a small circular soilure.
The Judge Rebecca West 1937
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Their opposites would have convicted me (the flat and earthly comparison must be allowed) of intrusion into some Place of beauty and serenity for which the soilure of my birth disqualified me.
Widdershins Oliver [pseud.] Onions 1917
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A man's life, like a great river, may be limpid-pure in the beginning, and when near its source; as it grows and gains strength it is inevitably sullied and stained with earth's soilure.
The Man Shakespeare Harris, Frank, 1855-1931 1909
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He must feel perfectly clean and free -- fresh, as if he had washed away all the years of soilure in this morning's sea and sun and sand.
The Trespasser 1907
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He knew that he was dicing with Death, but that was the very essence of his ideal; and he knew that if Death won the throw, his ideal was crowned and consummated, for ever safe from the withering touch of time, or accidental soilure.
Poems Alan Seeger 1902
yarb commented on the word soilure
...he switched on the electric torch and flashed it up and down the niche, though in the dazzling moonlight its rays were but a small circular soilure.
- Rebecca West, The Judge
September 12, 2009