fouling
/ˈfaʊlɪŋ/noun, verb
fouling is a noun meaning “The adhesion of a foreign material onto a surface, especially so as to reduce its functionality” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-U-L-I-N-G and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 1 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of fouling is foulings.
What does fouling mean?
noun
- 1
The adhesion of a foreign material onto a surface, especially so as to reduce its functionality.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of foul
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce fouling?
- /ˈfaʊlɪŋ/
Fouling has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of fouling
- foulings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is fouling?
Fouling appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 32,798th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Words people confuse with fouling
Sounds like: fowling (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).