foul wind

noun

"foul-wind" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“foul wind” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
9
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A wind blowing against the direction of travel.

Key facts for foul wind
PropertyValue
Headwordfoul wind
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters9
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “foul wind” sits in English frequency

foul wind falls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

foul wind is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A wind blowing against the direction of travel.".

foul wind doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is foul wind, spelled F-O-U-L- -W-I-N-D.

Definition

  1. 1
    A wind blowing against the direction of travel.

Antonyms

fair wind

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "foul wind"?
"foul wind" is spelled F-O-U-L- -W-I-N-D.
What does "foul wind" mean?
As a noun, "foul wind" means: A wind blowing against the direction of travel.
What language does "foul wind" come from?
"foul wind" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “foul wind”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is F-O-U-L- -W-I-N-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source

Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list