What's the difference between foul and obscene?

Foul


Definition:

  • (n.) A bird.
  • (superl.) Covered with, or containing, extraneous matter which is injurious, noxious, offensive, or obstructive; filthy; dirty; not clean; polluted; nasty; defiled; as, a foul cloth; foul hands; a foul chimney; foul air; a ship's bottom is foul when overgrown with barnacles; a gun becomes foul from repeated firing; a well is foul with polluted water.
  • (superl.) Scurrilous; obscene or profane; abusive; as, foul words; foul language.
  • (superl.) Hateful; detestable; shameful; odious; wretched.
  • (superl.) Loathsome; disgusting; as, a foul disease.
  • (superl.) Ugly; homely; poor.
  • (superl.) Not favorable; unpropitious; not fair or advantageous; as, a foul wind; a foul road; cloudy or rainy; stormy; not fair; -- said of the weather, sky, etc.
  • (superl.) Not conformed to the established rules and customs of a game, conflict, test, etc.; unfair; dishonest; dishonorable; cheating; as, foul play.
  • (superl.) Having freedom of motion interfered with by collision or entanglement; entangled; -- opposed to clear; as, a rope or cable may get foul while paying it out.
  • (v. t.) To make filthy; to defile; to daub; to dirty; to soil; as, to foul the face or hands with mire.
  • (v. t.) To incrust (the bore of a gun) with burnt powder in the process of firing.
  • (v. t.) To cover (a ship's bottom) with anything that impered its sailing; as, a bottom fouled with barnacles.
  • (v. t.) To entangle, so as to impede motion; as, to foul a rope or cable in paying it out; to come into collision with; as, one boat fouled the other in a race.
  • (v. i.) To become clogged with burnt powder in the process of firing, as a gun.
  • (v. i.) To become entagled, as ropes; to come into collision with something; as, the two boats fouled.
  • (n.) An entanglement; a collision, as in a boat race.
  • (n.) See Foul ball, under Foul, a.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Earlier recognition of foul-smelling mucoid discharge on the IUD tail, or abnormal bleeding, or both, as a sign of early pelvic infection, followed by removal of the IUD and institution of appropriate antibiotic therapy, might prevent the more serious sequelae of pelvic inflammation.
  • (2) I hope this two days off gives him the stimulus.” The omissions left a manager who cherishes control at risk of falling foul of the “law of Murphy” that he had already bemoaned this season.
  • (3) In some ways, the Gandolfini performance that his fans may savour most is his voice work in Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are (2009), the cult screen version of Maurice Sendak 's picture book classic – he voiced Carol, one of the wild things, an untamed, foul-mouthed figure.
  • (4) Sow had a couple of chances and the substitute Emmanuel Emenike drew a sharp last-minute save out of Szczesny but Giroud's penalty, after Kadlec's foul on Walcott, represented Arsenal's emphatic final word.
  • (5) The home team's defence had been undermined by naivety and it was in evidence when Stepanov, already on a yellow card for a foul on McGeady and having been played into trouble, lunged for the ball only to be beaten to it by Keane.
  • (6) 1.56am GMT 49ers 17-13 Seahawks, 2:47, 3rd quarter Andy Lee is hit as he kicks and it's a five yard penalty rather than the personal foul you would get for crushing the punter.
  • (7) Anything that good for you might be expected to smell foul and come in a medicine bottle, but the Mediterranean diet is generally considered to be delicious, except by those who hate olive oil.
  • (8) Both Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain are believed to have fallen foul of the FFP rules with sponsorship deals related to each clubs' owners.
  • (9) Already, opposition parties are crying foul over the draw-down of more than 80% of the national foreign reserves that were set up in 2012.
  • (10) The lecture worked and one of his substitutes, James Ward-Prowse, opened the scoring from the penalty spot in the 56th minute following a reckless foul on Shane Long by Alex Bruce.
  • (11) Apart from that, nothing much to write home about, except that Whelan was lucky to escape a booking when he trod on Olivier Giroud's ankle and Erik Pieters possibly took the rap a few minutes later, picking up a caution for a less obvious foul on the same player.
  • (12) Williams said: "There is no doubt in my mind that you are a paedophile who has for some time harboured sexual and morbid fantasies about young girls, storing on your laptop not only images of pre-pubescent and pubescent girls, but foul pornography of the gross sexual abuse of young children."
  • (13) He's fouled out on the right, and takes the free kick very quickly, taking advantage of a wandering Krol, but the referee deems the kick was not take from the right place, and was probably moving as well.
  • (14) Guardian US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg looked at the role cities would have to play in reducing emissions: At-risk cities hold solutions to climate change: UN report It is already taking shape as the 21st century urban nightmare: a big storm hits a city like Shanghai, Mumbai, Miami or New York, knocking out power supply and waste treatment plants, washing out entire neighbourhoods and marooning the survivors in a toxic and foul-smelling swamp.
  • (15) Business leaders sometimes fall foul of the regime in autocratic countries such as China, and when they do, they risk having their assets appropriated by the state .
  • (16) The Brazilians could delight in keep-ball thereafter, Benítez pointing to time-wasting tactics and plenty of rolling around at hints of fouls, with frustration eventually bubbling over.
  • (17) That would be strike out it seems, as Napoli foul-tips one into the catcher's mitt, the first strikeout for Matt Moore.
  • (18) Resembling a billhook, with Foule Crag its wickedly curved tip, this final flourish looks daunting but can be skirted to one side, up awkward slabs.
  • (19) 12.17am GMT Cardinals 0 - Red Sox 0, bottom of the 1st Dustin Pedroia hits a long long fly that's hooking hooking... foul.
  • (20) 1.06am GMT Red Sox 0 - Cardinals 0, bottom of the 3rd And Clay faces Lance Lynn to start off the third, and the Superman-character named pitcher works a decent at-bat, working the count to 2-2 and then fouling off the next two pitches and taking ball three to a full count.

Obscene


Definition:

  • (a/) Offensive to chastity or modesty; expressing of presenting to the mind or view something which delicacy, purity, and decency forbid to be exposed; impure; as, obscene language; obscene pictures.
  • (a/) Foul; fifthy; disgusting.
  • (a/) Inauspicious; ill-omened.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) These letters are also written during a period when Joyce was still smarting from the publishing difficulties of his earlier works Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Gordon Bowker, Joyce’s biographer, agreed: “Joyce’s problem with the UK printers related to the fact that here in those days printers were as much at risk of prosecution on charges of publishing obscenities as were publishers, and would simply refuse to print them.
  • (2) The footballer, who plays for club side Gabala and the national team , had waved a Turkish flag during a Europa League match in Cyprus, and appeared to make an obscene gesture at a Greek journalist who asked why he had done so.
  • (3) A catalogue of errors allowed the broadcast on Radio 2 of a series of obscene messages the pair had left on the actor Andrew Sachs's answerphone.
  • (4) Randall, a former banking computer analyst and a widower with two grownup daughters, learned on Wednesday that charges of "trafficking obscene material" had been dropped and he was to be deported.
  • (5) Zimmerman was charged with an offence of sending by public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing message or matter.
  • (6) The Occupy protesters outside St Paul's Cathedral in London named their camp "Tahrir Square" while they sat cross-legged, sang songs and consumed Marks & Spencer sandwiches, oblivious to the obscenity of a comparison with freedom fighters who risked their lives in Egypt.
  • (7) And while Altmejd presents sexual scenes of cartoonish horror and disgust, Lucas's art has embraced lavatorial humour, abjection, self-denigration, the pithy sculptural one-liner and the obscene gesture.
  • (8) Reuters's source said police told Ai: "You criticised the government, so we are going to let all society know that you're an obscene person, you evaded taxes, you have two wives, we want to shame you.
  • (9) Ing concedes she is hardly a fan of a man she accuses of a "blatant and obscene lack of ethics", but rejects the accusation that the film is anti-Thaksin propaganda: her use of red, for instance, was decided long before it became associated with his redshirts .
  • (10) The guidelines say that prosecutions should not be brought under obscenity laws but on the basis of the menace and humiliation intended, and in the most serious cases, where intimate images are used to coerce victims into further sexual activity, under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
  • (11) Several other places were vetoed on account of various scandals and disputes, and I have also excluded luxurious and obscenely priced retreats.
  • (12) One Barking and Dagenham resident – a British citizen with Indian Caribbean heritage – described the BNP leaflet campaign as "obscene".
  • (13) Yet our confusions over the c-word are demonstrated by the fact that it has been common in recent years to find hundreds of women standing in a public arena and yelling the gynaecological obscenity: the setting is performances of the drama The Vagina Monologues, in which one sequence invites women to reclaim and empower the down-there noun.
  • (14) He was prosecuted under section 127(1) of the Communications Act 2003, which prohibits sending "by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character".
  • (15) The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has buried that obscene version of history by convicting Bagosora of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes – and, in the process, establishing that what happened in Rwanda in 1994 was neither accidental nor spontaneous.
  • (16) He included the text of an email sent to the National Gallery of Victoria’s curatorial team on 12 September saying any work using the pieces could not “contain any political, religious, racist, obscene or defaming statements”.
  • (17) Can you still read and do the things you want?’ And he said that since he’d had his child, he had more time because it made him stronger, more concentrated, more serious.’” We discuss how the word “feminism” was considered an obscenity during their trial.
  • (18) Club leaders, who argue that a wife should serve as a "good sex worker" and a "whore" to her husband, showed the book to journalists last month in an effort to dispel what they called misconceptions that it was obscene and demeaning to women.
  • (19) The district judge Elizabeth Roscoe found Nunn guilty of sending indecent, obscene or menacing messages following a trial at City of London magistrates court this month, and jailed him on Monday.
  • (20) • Outrages by Naomi Wolf Naomi Wolf follows Vagina with an examination of the 1857 Obscene Publications Act – the first law to ban the sale of obscene materials.