Also 4, 7 soylure. [a. OF. soilleure (mod.F. souillure), f. soillier SOIL v.1] The currency of the word in the 19th cent. is prob. altogether due to the instance in Shakespeare.
1. Soiling, sullying, staining.
1297. R. Glouc. (Rolls), 8501. Þe bodies hii gaderede & vorbarnde hom echon,… so þat hii were Wiþoute soylure in clannesse al out maisters þere.
1859. Tennyson, Elaine, 7. Elaine … Guarded the sacred shield…, Then fearing rust or soilure fashion’d for it A case of silk.
1893. J. K. Ingram, De Imitatione, Pref. p. viii. The writing has only in a few places, and there but slightly, suffered from friction or soilure.
b. fig. (Common in recent literary use.)
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., IV. i. 56. He merits well to haue her, that doth seeke her, Not making any scruple of her soylure, With such a hell of paine.
1873. Alice & Phœbe Cary, Last Poems, 114.
| Soilure of sin, be sure | |
| Cannot harm thy hand so pure. |
1888. G. Gissing, Life’s Morning, I. iii. 110. With minds disengaged from anxiety of casual soilure.
1890. W. Watson, Poems (1905), I. 29. From soilure of ignoble touch Too grandly free.
2. A stain, blot or blemish.
1829. Landor, Imag. Conv., Wks. 1846, II. 235/1. He [Satan] did not conduct him [our Saviour] amid flowers and herbage, where a fall would have only been a soilure to our frail human nature.
1895. Zangwill, Master, III. viii. 486. Why had people besmirched the Creation with soilures of cynicism…?
