foxed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of fox.

   The cryptic final clue foxed even the most experienced solvers in the room.

   Detectives were foxed by the complete lack of any clear motive.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty here, as both the past tense (the clue foxed us) and the participle (we were foxed by the clue). Because the outwitting and baffling senses are transitive, the passive frame was foxed by is where it most often turns up. The same form also belongs to fox's paper-discoloring sense, which is where the stained-paper adjective comes from.

2. 2
   adjective

   Marked with yellowish-brown stains, as the pages of old books and prints often become with age.

   Like age spots on skin, but appearing on paper instead.

   The dealer discounted the volume because its frontispiece was badly foxed.

   Collectors will still pay well for a foxed first edition if the text remains clean.

   Similarspotted, stained, discolored, mottled, yellowed

   Oppositeclean, pristine, unblemished

   Note

   Paper takes this meaning from the verb fox, "to discolor paper." The spots are called fox marks, or foxing, and are put down to humidity. It grades like any adjective (more foxed, most foxed, badly foxed), and it need not be a complaint. Parul Sehgal, writing in The New York Times in 2021, calls her copy of Lolita "all foxed pages and spindly spine, battered and beloved."

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