defile🔊

To make (someone or something) physically dirty or unclean; to befoul, to soil. +

To make (someone or something) morally impure or unclean; to corrupt, to tarnish.

To act inappropriately towards or vandalize (something sacred or special); to desecrate, to profane.

(religion) To cause (something or someone) to become ritually unclean.

(obsolete) To deprive (someone) of their sexual chastity or purity, often not consensually; to deflower, to rape. +

(obsolete) To dishonour (someone).

(obsolete) To become dirty or unclean.

(obsolete) To cause uncleanliness; specifically, to pass feces; to defecate.

(archaic) To march in a single file or line; to file.

(obsolete) To march across (a place) in files or lines.

A narrow passage or way (originally (military), one which soldiers could only march through in a single file or line), especially a narrow gorge or pass between mountains.

(military) An act of marching in files or lines.

(military) A single file of soldiers; (by extension) any single file.

(military, rare) Defilade; To fortify (something) as a protection from enfilading fire.

(military, rare) An act of defilading a fortress or other place, or of raising the exterior works in order to protect the interior.