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Afoul   Listen
adverb
Afoul  adv., adj.  In collision; entangled.
To run afoul of, to run against or come into collision with, especially so as to become entangled or to cause injury.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Afoul" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Now they're going to see- saw. The black-maned one is the hardest to manage. I reckon, one day, he'll just naturally jump afoul of her, and tear her to pieces. Look at him! I don't believe this girl is going to make him get up on top of that board. My! how he is showing his teeth at her. Say! This is a pretty good show, hey? Glad you came, uh? Say! Look ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... Seth, peering excitedly over his shoulder into the dark. "Where are you? Look out or you'll be afoul of . . . ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... a great relief to us yesterday evening to see a man reading a book in the subway. We have undergone so many embarrassments trying to make out the titles of the books the ladies read, without running afoul of the Traveller's Aid Society, that we heaved a sigh of relief and proceeded to stalk our quarry with a light heart. Let us explain that on a crowded train it is not such an easy task. You see your victim at the other end of the car. ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... too long to be afraid of any hog-eating Yankee pirate such as this Blueskin. A junk full of coolies armed with stink-pots was something to speak of, but who ever heard of the likes of Blueskin falling afoul of anything more than a Spanish canoe ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... astounded at the incredulity of some people. Every now and then you run afoul of somebody who does not believe in spiritual knockers. Enter any of our drinking saloons, take a seat, or stand up, and look on for an hour or two, especially about the time "churchyards yawn!" and if you are any longer skeptical upon the spirit-ual manifestations as exhibited in the knee ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... vessels. They cried out that not only was there danger of fire but that they contained deadly engines also. Everything was in confusion. Panic-stricken they weighed anchor, cut their cables, hoisted their sails and struck for the open sea, every ship afoul of her neighbor. A huge galleass had her rudder broken and drifted ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... not contend that CIPA runs afoul of the first three limitations. However, they do allege that CIPA is unconstitutional under the fourth prong of Dole because it will induce public libraries to violate the First Amendment. Plaintiffs ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

... Cleve, a vast discouragement in his tone. "You lay a course as true and fine as a hair, and run afoul a rotting derelict ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... I was herding cattle in Texas, Jim Reed and his wife, with their two children, came back to her people. Reed had run afoul of the Federal authorities for passing counterfeit money at Los Angeles and had skipped between two days. Belle told her people she was tired roaming the country over and wanted to settle down at Syene. Mrs. Shirley wanted ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger

... then that Barney showed the greatness of his soul. In the confusion of the moment we had run afoul of a stout young oak, which obstinately menaced the integrity of our axle. It was only possible to back out of the predicament, but Barney scorned the thought of retreat. Not all the blandishments of the Small Boy, whether ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... can do. I have a lot of confidence in Phil, he manages to pull himself out of his scrapes pretty well most of the time," comforted Dick, although he too feared that Phil had gotten into some scrape that proved too much for him. Dick's fear was that Phil had run afoul of the tramps, for neither he nor Garry knew that LeBlanc ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle

... cattle-steamer'd be, and no more—first-rate for elephants and kangaroos, but no good for cruiser-work, and so slow she wouldn't make a ripple high enough to drown a gnat going at the top of her speed. Furthermore, she's got a great big hole in her bottom, where she was stove in by running afoul of—Mount Arrus-root, I believe it was called when Captain Noah went cruising with ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... At this word the Bishop, who little expected such a scene, fell at the King's feet and embraced his knees. He was a man whose face spoke at once of the virtue and benignity he possessed. In youth he was so pious, that young and old were afraid to say afoul word in his presence. Although very rich, he appropriated scarcely any of his wealth to himself, but gave it away for good works. The modesty and the simplicity with which M. d'Orleans sustained his nomination, increased the universal ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... said," retorted the Captain with his grimmest smile. "I never said ye were not to fight, for I trow ye'll have chance enough at that before I'm done with ye; but when a handful of men are set as we are to garrison a little post on the frontier of a savage country, for one to fall afoul of another and to risk two lives out of a dozen for some senseless feud of their own is to my mind little short of treason to the government they've sworn to defend. Now then, march! Alden, give Dotey thy arm to lean upon if he ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... specimen. They all were, the smart guys who held the people of two worlds in their power by exercising the knowledge they had learned from books. And this one had failed even in that; whatever he might have been, he had run afoul of the law himself and was already a doomed man. Tricks! This trick of Fuller's had gotten them away, but of what use was it without the brute force necessary to carry on ...
— Vulcan's Workshop • Harl Vincent

... opposite sides, on a signal from him we whirled our lariats and made casts simultaneously. The wrangler fastened to the brown I wanted, and my loop settled around the neck of his unridden horse. As the band broke away from our swinging ropes, a number of them ran afoul of my rope; but I gave the rowel to my grulla, and we shook them off. When I returned to Honeyman, and we had exchanged horses and were shifting our saddles, I complimented him on the long throw he had made in catching the brown, and incidentally mentioned that I had ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams

... not from hearsay alone, but because at sunrise on our second day northward, before we struck the river-road, we had like to have had a brush with him, his flankers running afoul of us not far beyond a fortified post ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... name," he confessed, "and a reputation none too savoury, as, I daresay, you know. Through the courtesy of the British Intelligence Office I was permitted to disguise these; but on the Assyrian I was recognized—in short, ran afoul of German Secret Service agents who knew me, but whom I did not know. On the sixth night out circumstances conspired to make me seem a serious obstacle to their schemes. Consequently I was waylaid, robbed, and ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... of jackasses on top of that! He might as well have kicked me, and done with it. Maybe he did kick me, and I didn't observe it, I was so taken all aback with his brow, somehow. It flashed like a bleached bone. What the devil's the matter with me? I don't stand right on my legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong side out. By the Lord, I must have been dreaming, though —How? how? how? —but the only way's .. to stash it; so here goes to hammock again; and in the morning, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... to have your eye-teeth cut when you run afoul of the Big Five Motorcycle Boys, and don't forget that!" he shouted over his shoulder, as he sped along; although of course the outwitted pursuers could hardly have caught the words, and even if they did ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow



Words linked to "Afoul" :   foul, fouled, run afoul



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