flatfoot
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From flat + foot. Piecewise doublet of platypus.
Noun
[edit]flatfoot (plural flatfoots or flatfeet)
- (medicine, chiefly in the plural) A condition in which the arch of the foot makes contact with the ground.
- A person having the above condition.
- (colloquial, archaic, derogatory, law enforcement) (plural typically flatfoots) A policeman.
- (US, informal, military, slang) A sailor.
Synonyms
[edit]- (police officer): see Thesaurus:police officer
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]condition
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person
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Verb
[edit]flatfoot (third-person singular simple present flatfoots, present participle flatfooting, simple past and past participle flatfooted)
- To walk around in the course of work, especially when investigating.
- 1936, John Thomas McIntyre, Steps going down, page 19:
- And even if they didn't know about her they might know this was his old neighborhood and go flatfooting around asking.
- 1956, Lee Mortimer, Around the World Confidential, page 38:
- Meanwhile, a bobby placidly flatfooting his beat a few feet away recognized Marlene under the street lamp and naturally assumed the girls had too, and were merely trying to get her autograph.
- 2017 -, Adam Baron, SuperJack: A totally gripping thriller with a twist you won’t see coming, →ISBN:
- I'd spent a very long day flatfooting it round housing estates near Old Street, looking for a twelve-year-old boy who I'd never managed to find though the police eventually had, two weeks later.
- To dance in the style of Appalachian clogging.
- 2014, Sarah Loudin Thomas, Appalachian Serenade (Appalachian Blessings): A Novella, →ISBN:
- Casewell, George, and Steve had the crowd flatfooting across the floor in no time.
- To gulp an entire drink (bottle, glass, can, etc.) without pausing between swallows.
- 2012, Dana Stabenow -, A Grave Denied, →ISBN:
- “Thanks, Kate,” Bill Bingley said, laying down a screw gun and flatfooting the Coke she handed him.
- To perform an action inefficiently or awkwardly.
- To wrong-foot.
- 2018 June 17, Barney Ronay, “Mexico’s Hirving Lozano stuns world champions Germany for brilliant win”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian[1], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 5 August 2019:
- In the event they lacked a proper midfield bolt, with Toni Kroos and Sami Khedira huffing around in pursuit of the whizzing green machine. The centre-backs looked flustered, left to deal with three on two as Mexico broke. Löw’s 4-2-3-1 seemed antiquated and creaky, with the old World Cup shark Thomas Müller flat-footed in a wide position.
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *pleth₂-
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *ped-
- English compound terms
- English piecewise doublets
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English nouns with irregular plurals
- en:Medicine
- English colloquialisms
- English terms with archaic senses
- English derogatory terms
- en:Law enforcement
- American English
- English informal terms
- en:Military
- English slang
- English verbs
- English terms with quotations
- English bahuvrihi compounds
- English adjective-noun compound nouns
- en:Dance
- en:People