[f. SOIL v.1]
1. The action of making or becoming dirty, tarnished or stained. Also fig.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Salissure, fouling, soyling.
1612. Brinsley, Lud. Lit., iv. (1627), 29. To keepe their bookes from soyling, or marring under their hands.
1635–56. Cowley, Davideis, I. 871. Thus Souls live cleanly, and no Soiling fear.
1643. Milton, Divorce, II. xix. Which … is rather a soiling then a fulfilling of mariage-rites.
1809. Naval Chron., XXII. 277. To remove any soiling it might have received.
1892. W. D. Welford, in Photogr. Ann., II. 530. Thus avoiding soiling of the glass.
2. spec. (See SOIL v.1 5 and 6.) Also attrib.
1549. Coverdale, etc. Erasm. Par. 2 Peter, II. 19. The sowe hath washed … in vayne, if she by and by after she is washen, returne to the soylinges that she had gone from.
1856. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Rur. Sports, 82/2. The deer’s haunt is called his lair;… where he rolls, his soiling-pool.
1884. Jefferies, Red Deer, vi. 102. They have their regular ‘soiling-pits’—watery places or shallow ponds.
1899. Westm. Gaz., 18 Aug., 3/1. ‘Soiling,’ or taking water, less frequently results in throwing hounds off the scent.
