Library / English Dictionary

FOIL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A light slender flexible sword tipped by a button

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("foil" is a kind of...):

fencing sword (a sword used in the sport of fencing)

Domain category:

fencing (the art or sport of fighting with swords (especially the use of foils or epees or sabres to score points under a set of rules))

Sense 2

Meaning:

A piece of thin and flexible sheet metal

Example:

the photographic film was wrapped in foil

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("foil" is a kind of...):

sheet metal (sheet of metal formed into a thin plate)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "foil"):

aluminium foil; aluminum foil; tin foil (foil made of aluminum)

chaff (foil in thin strips; ejected into the air as a radar countermeasure)

gold foil (foil made of gold)

tin foil; tinfoil (foil made of tin or an alloy of tin and lead)

Derivation:

foil (cover or back with foil)

foliate (coat or back with metal foil)

foliate (hammer into thin flat foils)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Picture consisting of a positive photograph or drawing on a transparent base; viewed with a projector

Synonyms:

foil; transparency

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("foil" is a kind of...):

icon; ikon; image; picture (a visual representation (of an object or scene or person or abstraction) produced on a surface)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "foil"):

lantern slide; slide (a transparency mounted in a frame; viewed with a slide projector)

overhead; viewgraph (a transparency for use with an overhead projector)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A device consisting of a flat or curved piece (as a metal plate) so that its surface reacts to the water it is passing through

Example:

the fins of a fish act as hydrofoils

Synonyms:

foil; hydrofoil

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("foil" is a kind of...):

device (an instrumentality invented for a particular purpose)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Anything that serves by contrast to call attention to another thing's good qualities

Example:

pretty girls like plain friends as foils

Synonyms:

enhancer; foil

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("foil" is a kind of...):

attention (a general interest that leads people to want to know more)

Derivation:

foil (enhance by contrast)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cover or back with foil

Example:

foil mirrors

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "foil" is one way to...):

cover (provide with a covering or cause to be covered)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

foil (a piece of thin and flexible sheet metal)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of

Example:

foil your opponent

Synonyms:

baffle; bilk; cross; foil; frustrate; queer; scotch; spoil; thwart

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "foil" is one way to...):

forbid; foreclose; forestall; preclude; prevent (keep from happening or arising; make impossible)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "foil"):

disappoint; let down (fail to meet the hopes or expectations of)

dash (destroy or break)

short-circuit (hamper the progress of; impede)

ruin (destroy or cause to fail)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

foiling (an act of hindering someone's plans or efforts)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Enhance by contrast

Example:

In this picture, the figures are foiled against the background

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "foil" is one way to...):

contrast; counterpoint (to show differences when compared; be different)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

foil (anything that serves by contrast to call attention to another thing's good qualities)

Credits

 Context examples: 

His madness foiled his reason, and a puzzled look spread over his face as, shaking his head with a decision which I had but seldom seen in him, he said:—"Oh, no, oh no! I want no souls. Life is all I want."

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Roasted peacocks, with the feathers all carefully replaced, so that the bird lay upon the dish even as it had strutted in life, boars' heads with the tusks gilded and the mouth lined with silver foil, jellies in the shape of the Twelve Apostles, and a great pasty which formed an exact model of the king's new castle at Windsor—these were a few of the strange dishes which faced him.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was one of the best blades in Europe, but I was a little too supple in the wrist for him. ‘I thank God there was a button on your Highness’s foil,’ said he, when we had finished our breather.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A dark-blue oar crossed with a cherry-pink one above his mantel-piece spoke of the old Oxonian and Leander man, while the foils and boxing-gloves above and below them were the tools of a man who had won supremacy with each.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Sir Thomas gave up the point, foiled by her evasions, disarmed by her flattery; and was obliged to rest satisfied with the conviction that where the present pleasure of those she loved was at stake, her kindness did sometimes overpower her judgment.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

When the neuronal signal was stronger on the side reacting to cued color changes, the monkeys were better at reporting cued changes and rejecting foil color changes.

(Researchers discover neural code that predicts behavior, National Institutes of Health)

Each of the 64 items on the test was presented only once to ensure that the targets, but not the foils, were represented by an episodic memory.

(Storing memories of recent events, NIH)

Here were the gold mullets of the Pakingtons, the sable and ermine of the Mackworths, the scarlet bars of the Wakes, the gold and blue of the Grosvenors, the cinque-foils of the Cliftons, the annulets of the Musgraves, the silver pinions of the Beauchamps, the crosses of the Molineaux, the bloody chevron of the Woodhouses, the red and silver of the Worsleys, the swords of the Clarks, the boars'-heads of the Lucies, the crescents of the Boyntons, and the wolf and dagger of the Lipscombs.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)