fox´like´

fox «foks», noun, verb.

–n.

1. a wild animal related to the dog, having a pointed muzzle and bushy tail. Foxes are flesh-eating mammals smaller than wolves. In many stories the fox gets the better of other animals by his cunning.

2. its fur.

3. an animal having some resemblance to the fox, such as the flying fox.

4. Figurative. a cunning or crafty person: »

Don't you see how that old fox steals away your customers? (John Arbuthnot).

5. Nautical. two or more rope yarns twisted together and smoothed out, used for seizing.

6. Obsolete. a kind of sword: »

Put up your fox, and let us be jogging (Scott).

–v.t.

1. Informal. to trick by being sly and crafty; deceive: »

We are actually in the gallant British machine that foxes the enemy with its special thirty-times-more-powerful radar (Punch).

2. to discolor; stain: »

The book is still sound, but badly foxed.

3. to befuddle; make drunk: »

The last of whom I did almost fox with Margate ale (Samuel Pepys).

4. to make (beer) sour.

5. to make or repair (a boot, shoe, or glove) by covering with or adding upper leather.

–v.i.

1. to act slyly and craftily: »

To his mind everybody was dodging and foxing (D. C. Murray).

2. to become discolored or stained.

3. (of beer) to turn sour.

4. to hunt the fox.

5. Obsolete. to get drunk.

╂[Old English fox]

–fox´like´, adjective.

Fox «foks», noun, plural Fox|es or Fox.

1. a member of an Algonkian tribe of Indians closely associated with the Sauk, formerly of Wisconsin but now living mainly in Iowa.

2. the Algonkian language of the tribe.