0 past simple and past participle of foil
1 to prevent someone or something from being successful:
When the degree of natural variation turned out to be much greater than expected, we were foiled.
Any attempts to introduce interesting new methods of assessment and testing were foiled by limitations in the memory size and processing speed of the computers.
In the field of architecture where advancement through research is foiled by minuscule sponsorship, progress is also minuscule.
But the committee's efforts were foiled by a struggle between private and public interests that would plague burial reform throughout most of the nineteenth century.
If our view is ambition-sensitive, we need to establish whether and why we care particularly about ambitions foiled by disability compared with other obstacles to opportunity, such as involuntary unemployment.
Fraud will not be foiled, however, unless witnesses certify in front of a lawyer or are contacted before an advance directive is acted on.
He has, one might suppose, been foiled by her action.
We all know that the one question can easily be foiled.
