foot
Definitions
General English
- noun a unit of measurement equal to about 30 centimetres
General Science
- noun the bottom part of a leg which supports the body
Aviation
- noun a unit of length in the US and British Imperial Systems equal to 12 inches or 30.48 centimetres.
Computing
- noun the bottom part of something
Construction
- The bottom or base of an object.
- A unit of measurement of length in the English system.
- A projection on a cylindrical roller used to compact a layer of earth fill.
Electronics
- A unit of length equal to 0.3048 meter. Its abbreviation is ft.
Information & Library Science
- noun the bottom part of a page
Medical
- noun the end part of the leg on which a person stands
Military
- noun the part of the body on which a person or animal walks
- noun a unit of linear measurement corresponding to 12 inches or 30.48 centimetres
Publishing
- verb to be printed at the bottom of a page
Travel
- noun a part of the body at the end of the leg
Origin & History of “foot”
Foot traces its ancestry back to Indo-European *pōd-, *ped-, which provided the word for ‘foot’ in most modern Indo-European languages (the exceptions are the Slavic languages, whose ‘foot’ – words, such as Russian noga and Czech noha, come from a source that meant ‘claw’, and the Celtic languages – such as Welsh troed and Irish troigh). Descendants include Greek poús ‘foot’ (whence English antipodes, pew, podium (18th c.), and tripod, literally ‘three-footed’, a formation mirrored exactly by Latin trivet (15th c.) and Hindi teapoy (19th c.)), Persian pāē or pay (whence English pyjama), Sanskrit pā́das ‘foot’ (source of pie ‘unit of Indian currency’), and Lithuanian pedà ‘footstep’, but the most fruitful of all from the point of view of the English lexicon has been Latin pēs, source of impede, pawn ‘chess piece’, pedal, pedestal, pedestrian, pedicure, pedigree, pedometer, peon, pioneer, quadruped, vamp, and velocipede (it also, of course, gave French pied, Italian piede, and Spanish pie). Its Germanic descendant was *fōr-, which produced German fuss, Dutch voet, Swedish fot, Danish fod, and English foot. other related forms in English include pilot and trapeze.
