Foot

How to spell foot

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce foot

What does foot mean?

1. nounThe part of the body at the end of the leg, on which a person stands and walks.
2. nounA unit of length equal to twelve inches, used for measuring distance and height.
3. nounThe lowest part or base of something, such as a hill, page, or bed.
4. verbTo pay a bill or cover the cost of something.

Foot in a sentence

• noun

  She stubbed her foot on the corner of the bed frame.

• noun

  The shelf sat exactly one foot above the floor.

• noun

  A small note appeared at the foot of the page.

• verb

  The company agreed to foot the bill for the entire conference.

• noun

  The new hiking boot rubbed a blister on his left foot.

• noun

  Each plank measured one foot across at its widest point.

Where does foot come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Foot is a thoroughly native English word, descending from the Old English fot, which meant exactly what it means today: the part of the body at the end of the leg on which a person stands. It traces back to the Proto-Germanic fots, the same ancestor that gave German Fuss and Dutch voet, and ultimately to the Proto-Indo-European root ped, meaning 'foot', which also lies behind the Latin pes, pedis and the Greek pous, podis. That shared deep root is why so many borrowed words for the same idea look quite different yet are cousins, such as 'pedal', 'pedestrian', and 'podium'. The measurement sense, a length of roughly twelve inches, arose naturally because people once measured distance using the length of a human foot. The plural 'feet' preserves an old Germanic vowel change rather than simply adding an -s, a survival from the way early English formed certain plurals.

How the word is built

• foot (from Old English fot: the body part at the end of the leg)