1880. Greenwood, Odd People in Odd Places, p. 61. ‘You keep it going pretty loud here, with a couple of policemen foxing about just outside.’
4. (colloquial).—To sham.
1880. One and All, 6 Nov., p. 296, ‘Let us look at these vagabons; maybe they’re only foxin’.’ The two men who had received such tangible mementos of the whip-handle and the blackthorn lay perfectly still.
5. (American).—To play truant.
6. (booksellers’).—To stain; to discolour with damp; said of books and engravings. Foxed = stained or discoloured.
1881. C. M. I[ngleby] in Notes and Queries (6th S., iv., 96). Tissue paper harbours damp, and in a damp room will assuredly help to fox the plates which they face.
1885. Austin Dobson, At the Sign of the Lyre, 83. And the Rabelais foxed and flea’d.
7. (theatrical).—To criticise a ‘brother pro’s’ performance.
8. (common).—To mend a boot by ‘capping’ it.
To set a fox to keep one’s geese, phr. (common).—To entrust one’s money, or one’s circumstances, to the care of sharpers. Latin, Ovem lupo commisisti.