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[OE] The underlying meaning of foul is probably ‘rotten, putrid’, with overtones of ‘evilsmelling’. It goes back to an Indo-European *pu-, which may originally have been inspired by the same reaction as produced the English exclamation of disgust at a bad smell, pooh. Amongst its other off-spring were Latin pūs, source of English pus, purulent, and supurate, and Latin putridus, source of English putrid. Its Germanic descendant was *fu-, on which the adjective *fūlaz was based. This produced German faul ‘rotten, lazy’, Dutch vuil ‘dirty’, and English foul, and also the derived noun filth [OE]. Defile ‘make dirty’ is not directly related, but its form was influenced by the now obsolete verb befile, which was connected with foul.
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