Verb. (idem).—To run against; to run down. Also to come (or fall) foul of. [Foul, adj. and verb. is used in two senses: (1) = dirty, as a foul word, a foul shrew (Dickens), to foul the bed, &c.; and (2) = unfair, as a foul (i.e., a felon) stroke, a foul blow, and so forth.] 1626. Captain John Smith, Accidence for Seamen, in wks. (Arber), p. 796. Boord and boord, or thwart the hawse, we are foule on each other. 1724. E. Coles, Eng. Dict. Foul, hindred or intangled with another ship’s ropes, etc. 1754. Connoisseur, No. 3. Which sailed very heavy, were often a-ground, and continually ran foul on each other. 1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xiii. Their coxswain ... had to pull his left hand hard or they would have fouled the Oxfordshire corner. 1885 Illus. London News, March 28, p. 316, col. 1. In 1849 there were two races in the course of the year; Cambridge won the first, Oxford the second, on a foul (the only time the race has been so won). 1889. Licensed Victuallers’ Gaz., 18 Jan. Dick was done out of the stakes on an appeal of foul. To foul a plate with, verbal phr. (old, colloquial).—To dine or sup with.—Grose. Foulcher, subs. (thieves’).—A purse. 1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 243. ‘A foulcher, with flimsies and couters for a score of quid in it.’ Foul-mouthed, adj. (colloquial).—Obscene or blasphemous in speech. Found in a Parsley-bed. See Parsley-bed and Gooseberry-bush. Fountain of Love, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable. Four-and-nine (or Four-and-ninepenny), subs. phr. (old).—A hat. [So-called from the price at which an enterprising Bread Street hatter sold his hats, circa 1844, at which date London was hideous with posters displaying a large black hat and ‘4s. and 9d.’ in white letters.] 1844. Advertisement Couplet. Whene’er to slumber you incline, Take a short nap at four-and-nine. 1846. Thackeray, Yellow Plush Papers, p. 152 (ed. 1887). You may, for instance, call a coronet a coronal (an ‘ancestral coronal,’ p. 74) if you like, as you might call a hat a ‘swart sombrero,’ a ‘glossy four-and-nine,’ ‘a silken helm to storm impermeable, and lightsome as the breezy gossamer;’ but in the long run it is safer to call it a hat. 1847. Thackeray, Mrs. Perkins’s Ball (The Mulligan). The Mulligan has withdrawn his custom from the ‘infernal four-and-ninepenny scoundthrel,’ as he calls him. The hatter has not shut up shop in consequence. 1849. Viator, Oxford Guide. He then did raise his four-and-nine, And scratched his shaggy pate. 1867. Jas. Greenwood, Unsent. Journeys, xxx., 229. Because he wore a four-and-nine, and had a pencil stuck behind his ear. Four-bones, subs. (thieves’).—The knees.