foul casen.adj.
/ˌfaʊl ˈkeɪs/, U.S. /ˌfaʊl ˈkeɪs/ Typography and Printing.
A. n.
A type case in which the pieces of type have been placed in the wrong compartments; the presence of these misplaced pieces as a source of typographical errors.
ΚΠ
1872 W. Blades Shakespeare & Typogr. 74 The compositor works with two of these cases slanting up in front of him, and, when from a shake, a slip, or any other accident, the letters become misplaced, the result is technically known as a ‘foul case’.
1930 Mod. Lang. Rev. 25 401 As I go forward, I notice an increasing number of misprints due to ‘foul case’.
1999 Papers Bibliogr. Soc. Amer. 93 60 Both variants could only have been deliberately set, as foul-case is not a possible explanation.
B. adj.
Frequently hyphenated. Designating a typographical error caused by foul case; (of a letter) printed by mistake as a result of foul case.
ΚΠ
1905 Eng. Graduate Rec. (Columbia Univ.) 2 7 The modern classification of compositors' frailties—‘errors of the ear’, ‘errors of the eye’, and ‘foul case errors’.
1952 Stud. in Bibliogr. 5 91 Instead of replacing the foul case ‘f’ in ‘old’ either at the striking of proofs, or when the imprint was moved.
2007 A. Weiss in G. Taylor et al. Thomas Middleton & Early Mod. Textual Culture i. 218/1 The a priori condition for concluding substitution is that the same foul-case letter or foul-case cluster never have appeared previously in a setting which used the typefont in question.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2021; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.adj.1872