defile
kind
archaic sense
modern equivalent
make dirty, make unclean; narrow pass
part of speech
verb (also noun in sentence 2)
meaning for a pupil
To make something impure or dirty; as a noun, a narrow path between hills. tree →
how it differs from today
Today "defile" as a verb means to spoil purity, and as a noun it means a narrow valley pass. The first and third sentences use the verb as we do; the second sentence uses the noun in an old sense.
examples
- And thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour's wife, to defile thyself with her. (Torah LEV.18.20, JPS 1917) tree →
- Twenty years later his son Aristomachus consulted an oracle, which promised him victory if he went by way of the defile. (Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome) tree →
- He shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself. (Torah LEV.21.4, JPS 1917) tree →
primary record
defile
tests
rate: sense (≥3 uses in the Torah, ≥10× EWT there, Wiktionary: an archaic sense); corpora 22 (Torah 17, tales 5, Sefer Yetzirah 0); EWT 0; ratio 2.5 (Torah alone 39.7); Wiktionary archaic (a sense)
In the corpora
- And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father with guile, and spoke, because he had defiled Dinah their sister,
- The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and spoiled the city, because they had defiled their sister.
- And thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour's wife, to defile thyself with her.
- And the land was defiled, therefore I did visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomited out her inhabitants.
- for all these abominations have the men of the land done, that were before you, and the land is defiled —
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «defile» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.