foot-pace
(ˈfʊtpeɪs)
[See pace n.]
1. A walking pace. Chiefly in advb. phr. a foot-pace, at (or † in) a foot-pace = at a walking pace.
| 1538 Eliot, Pedepressim, a foote pase, softly. 1562 J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 149 The best lacketh feete, foote pace with vs to holde. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1658) 315 Cause him every day to be led up and down a foot pace a quarter of an hour. 1637 Breton Poste w. packet Wks. (Grosart) 41/1 For your foot-pace, I thinke you haue sore heeles, you walke so nicely, as vpon egge⁓shels. 1674 N. Cox Gentl. Recreat. v. (1686) 5 Being oblig'd..to toil their Horses all day, over deep Fallows, in a foot⁓pace only. 1810 Sporting Mag. XXXVI. 90 The child was riding only a foot pace. 1859 Dickens T. Two Cities i. ii. ‘Come on at a footpace, d'ye mind me?’ |
2. Something on which to tread or set the feet. † a. A carpet or mat. Obs.
| 1585 Nomenclator 249/2 Storea..a mat: a footepase of sedges. 1653 H. Cogan tr. Pinto's Trav. xl. 160 A Chair of State..and at the foot of it a Cushion of the same, all upon an exceeding large foot-pace of tapestry. 1706 in Phillips (ed. Kersey). |
b. A raised portion of a floor; a dais or platform; e.g. the step or raised floor on which an altar stands.
| 1580 Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong, Marche-pied, a foote⁓pace, a threshold, a groundsill. 1598 in Mem. Stepney Parish (1890–1) 34 Item, that there be made about the communion table a raile w{supt}{suph} a foote pace and mattes thereon to kneele vpon. 1612 Bacon Ess., Judicature (Arb.) 456 The place of Justice is an hallowed place; and therefore not onely the bench, but the footepace and precincts and purprise thereof ought to bee preserued with⁓out scandall and corruption. a 1676 Whitelocke Mem. (1682) 609 At the upper end upon a Foot pace and Carpet, stood the Protector with a Chair of State behind him. a 1697 Aubrey Nat. Hist. Surrey (1719) V. 193 The Communion Table..[is] placed on a fine black and white Footpace. 1845 Ecclesiologist IV. 102 The footpace, or altar-platform. 1872 Shipley Gloss. Eccl. Terms, Footpace..a raised flooring in a bay window. |
c. A hearth-stone.
| 1652 Gaule Magastrom. 181 The crickets chirping behind the chimney stock; or creeping upon the foot-pace. 1703 T. N. City & C. Purchaser 220 Some Pavements, (as in Foot⁓paces before Chimneys). 1840 Parker Gloss. Archit., Foot⁓pace. This term is also sometimes used for the hearth⁓stone. |
d. A half landing on a staircase or flight of steps; also called half-pace.
| 1703 Moxon Mech. Exerc. 160 Foot-pace, is a part of a pair of Stairs..where you make two or three paces before you ascend another step. 1842 Gwilt Encycl. Archit. Gloss., Foot Pace or Half Pace. |