Definition of "defile" in English

verb

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

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

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

   • To urinate on someone’s grave is an example of a way to defile it.

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

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

   • The serial rapist kidnapped and defiled a six-year-old girl.

6. To dishonour (someone).

7. To become dirty or unclean.

8. To cause uncleanliness; specifically, to pass feces; to defecate.

verb

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

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

noun

1. 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.

2. An act of marching in files or lines.

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

verb

1. (transitive, military, rare) Synonym of defilade (“to fortify (something) as a protection from enfilading fire”).

noun

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