‘Foul Play’, Meaning & Context

Meaning of “foul play”

“Foul play” is a Shakespearean phrase and refers to any treacherous or unfair dealing, especially involving murder. The police will often report that a death was natural and will say something like “foul play is not suspected.”

Origin of “foul play”

“Foul play” is a term Shakespeare liked. He used it three times in his plays, and what’s more, it seems that he was the first to use it in print or on the stage.

Shakespeare uses “foul play” to mean something treacherous, although not necessarily murder. He uses the phrase in three of his plays.

1. At the beginning of Henry IV Part 1 Sir Walter Blunt brings the king intelligence of a rebellion. He says:

So hath the business that I come to speak of.
Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word
That Douglas and the English rebels met
The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury
A mighty and a fearful head they are,
If promises be kept on every hand,
As ever offer’d foul play in the state.

Henry IV Part 1, Act 3, Scene 2

2. In The Tempest Prospero explains to his fifteen year-old daughter, Miranda, how it is that they came to be on the island:

PROSPERO: Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,
Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and
A prince of power.

MIRANDA: Sir, are not you my father?

PROSPERO: Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter: and thy father
Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir
And princess,–no worse issued.

MIRANDA: O, the heavens!
What foul play had we that we came from thence?
Or blessed was’t we did?

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2

In Pericles Cleon and Dionyza are talking about covering up the apparent murder of Pericles’ daughter:

CLEON: Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
I’d give it to undo the deed. A lady
Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess
To equal any single crown o’ th’ Earth
I’ the justice of compare. O villain Leonine,
Whom thou hast poisoned too!
If thou hadst drunk to him, ’t had been a kindness
Becoming well thy face. What canst thou say
When noble Pericles shall demand his child?

DIONYZA: That she is dead. Nurses are not the Fates.
To foster is not ever to preserve.
She died at night; I’ll say so. Who can cross it
Unless you play the impious innocent
And, for an honest attribute, cry out
“She died by foul play!”

Pericles, Act 4, Scene 3

Shakespearean phrase ‘Foul play’

Foul play in sport

Competing in sport is a highly serious business and great care is taken in all sports to make sure that everything is above board and that cheating in the actual game is eliminated. The concept of a “foul” – an action in the game that contravenes the rules in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage – came into use in almost every sport. It began with basketball.

When Dr. James Naismith invented basketball, he proposed 13 rules, which he published in 1892. Naismith stipulated in one rule that “no shouldering, holding, pushing, tripping, or striking in any way the person of an opponent shall be allowed.” These actions would be known as fouls.

A foul in football

In soccer, known by most of the world as “football,” one of the most interesting things in the area of fouls is the one unique to football – the “professional foul” – which is a carefully calculated foul that could benefit the team whose member commits the foul by breaking the rules to prevent an opponent from scoring.

A professional foul is the name given to an action in professional football that involves a player on the defending team deliberately fouling a player on the attacking side in order to stop them from scoring or getting a clear goal-scoring opportunity.

The foul will result in a free kick or penalty for the other side that may result in less chance of scoring than they would have had if they hadn’t been fouled. The player who commits the professional foul will have weighed up whether it will end up having been worth it. It may result in a caution for him with a yellow or red card but not losing the match might be the reward and will have been worth it. The referee, too, will have to weigh up the level of sanction the foul deserves. Very complicated!