barefoot, a. and adv.
(ˈbɛəfʊt)
Rarely 5–6 barefeet (pl.).
[OE. bærfót, early ME. barfot; cf. ON. berfœttr adj., LG. barfet, G. barfusz. See bare a. IV.]
With the feet bare or naked, without shoes or stockings on: a. as adj., passing (with verbs of motion) into b. adv. Also U.S. in fig. use (see quots. and cf. bare-footed a. c).
| a. c 1000 Peccat. Med. (Bosw.) Bærfót, nudipes. 1205 Lay. 8843 Sone he dude hine bar-fot [1250 bareuot]. a 1300 Cursor M. 6072 Lok þat þai be scod ilkan..and barfote nan. 1592 Shakes. Rom. & Jul. v. ii. 5 Going to find a bare⁓foote Brother out. 1679 Hist. Jetzer 38 The Covent of the Bare-foot Friers. 1818 J. C. Hobhouse Hist. Illustr. 253 The Emperor..undertook a barefoot pilgrimage to Mount Garganus. 1870 Lowell Study Wind. 43 Burns, whose bare⁓foot Muse got the color in her cheeks by vigorous exercise in all weathers. |
| b. c 1230 Ancr. R. 420 Ine sumer..to gon and sitten baruot. c 1386 Chaucer Frankl. T. 349 Thy Temple in Delphos wol I barefoot seke. 1483 Caxton Gold. Leg. 249/2 Blessid chyldren..haue gone upon the coles brennyng bar⁓feet. 1562 J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 37 Who waitth for dead men shoen, shall go long barefoote. 1692 South 12 Serm. (1697) I. 40 He that thinks to expiate a sin by going barefoot, does the Penance of a Goose. 1856 Froude Hist. Eng. I. 81 Henry walked barefoot through the streets. |
| fig. 1866 Lowell Biglow P. Ser. ii. Introd., ‘I take my tea barfoot,’ said a backwoodsman when asked if he would have cream and sugar. 1888 Chicago Herald (Farmer), Never touch coffee unless you like it barefoot, that is, without sugar or milk. |
c. spec. barefoot doctor [
tr. Chinese
chìjiǎoyīshēng,
f. chì bare +
jiǎo foot +
yīshēng physician], a paramedical worker with basic medical training,
esp. one working in rural China.
| 1971 China Q. Jan.–Mar. 185 Dr. Horn..gives by far the most detailed account I have seen in English of the training, role, and supervision of the peasant-doctors (or ‘barefoot doctors’), and their relationship to the mobile medical teams. 1972 J. S. Aird in D. J. Dwyer China Now (1974) ix. 186 In a rural area near Peking in 1971, the hsien revolutionary committee mobilized sanitation workers and ‘barefoot doctors’—youthful paramedics with a few months' basic training—to conduct birth control propaganda. 1974 China Reconstructs July 41/2 The term ‘barefoot doctors’ refers to medical workers trained from among commune members who continue to engage in farm work. As they first appeared in south China where the commune members work barefoot in the paddy fields, these new-type medical workers are called ‘barefoot doctors’. 1975 Nature 21 Aug. 610/2 The term ‘barefoot doctor’ is now known the world over. It seems that it was first used in the Chiangchen People's Commune on the outskirts of Shanghai in 1965, where a medical team started teaching young farmers to perform some medical tasks. 1976 Times 31 Aug. (Malaysia Suppl.) p. vi/5 Sarawak's own ‘barefoot doctors’..are given up to three years paramedical training. 1979 D. Barlow Sexually Transmitted Dis. iii. 21 Any hopes of eventually controlling levels of infection will almost certainly depend on paramedical or ‘barefoot’ doctors playing a larger role. 1983 S. Naipaul Hot Country v. 70 The Government has worked out a plan for training barefoot doctors, an idea the President got when he went to China last year. |