• DEFILE

1. TR., maculare; commaculare; maculis aspergere (especially to stain what is white): contaminare (to sully the purity of anything): inquinare (to pollute, with the accessory notion of destroying the beauty of anything): polluere (implies a desecration of what is holy and pure): spurcare; conspurcare (to make dirty, with the accessory notion of disgust; scarcely ever used in the elevated style): violare (to dishonour, to deflour, and also to profane): to defile one’s hands with blood, manus suas sanguine cruentare: to be defiled with the blood of kinsmen, parricidio contaminari: to be defile with lust, vitam oblinere libidine; libidinibus inquinari. Vid. STAIN, POLLUTE.

2. INTR., perhaps in acie procedere: to defile, or march through a narrow pass, per angustias iter habere: the army defiles through a mountain pass covered with woods, agmen per saltum porrigitur (Tac., Ann., 1, 51, 3).

3. angustiae (a narrow pass, through a chain of mountains): fauces (a narrow pass, opening into a wider space).