▪ I. footer, n.1
(ˈfʊtə(r))
[f. foot n. or v. + -er1.]
1. a. One who goes on foot, a pedestrian. rare.
| 1608 Topsell Serpents (1658) 780 Being none of the best footers she could hardly keep way with the Spider. 1890 Baring-Gould Old Co. Life 327 The tor is covered with horses, traps, carriages, footers. |
b. One who walks in a place, a frequenter.
| 1890 Univ. Rev. 15 July 317 This shy footer of solitudes. |
2. Falconry. Of the hawk: (see foot v. 6).
| 1879 [see foot v. 6]. 1879 Radcliffe in Encycl. Brit. IX. 10/2 They..are most deadly ‘footers’. 1881 Macm. Mag. Nov. 40 A better ‘footer’—more clever at seizing the quarry in his talons. |
3. Football. a. A kick at a football. ? Obs. b. slang. The game itself.
| 1781 J. Hutton Tour to Caves, etc. (ed. 2) 89 Footer, a stroke at a foot-ball. 1863 Boy's Own Vol. July 36 A peculiar fashion of their own [at Harrow] which prompts them to call football ‘footer’. 1896 Westm. Gaz. 12 Dec. 1/3 Who'd have thought of finding the old smug at a footer match? 1925 W. Deeping Sorrell & Son xvi, To perform on the footer field with a lot of young louts. 1945 E. Waugh Brideshead Revisited i. i. 30, I had to change for F-f-footer. |
4. Bowls. (See quot. 1876.)
| 1863 Feltham's Guide to Archery, etc. 57 If a gentleman play a bowl without his foot being upon the footer. 1876 Wilkinson in Encycl. Brit. IV. 180/2 The ‘footer’ is the small piece of material—cocoa-nut matting is the best—whereon each player stands in delivering the ball. |
5. With a numeral prefixed: A person or thing whose height or length is of that number of feet; as six-footer, twenty-one-footer, etc.
| 1844 J. T. J. Hewlett Parsons & W. xxxiii, I..inquired of a second six-footer. 1892 Daily News 21 July 3/6 The club also sailed a match for 21-footers on Tuesday. |
6. (See quot.)
| 1927 T. Woodhouse Artificial Silk 95 In the manufacture of stockings..two machines are used... One of these machines, termed the ‘legger’, knits the upper and longer part of the stocking, whereas the other machine, termed the ‘footer’, knits the remainder of the stocking. |
▪ II. footer, n.2 dial. or slang.
(ˈfuːtə(r))
[? var. of foutre.]
(See quots.). ? Hence ˈfooter v., to trifle, ‘potter about’. ˈfootering ppl. a.
| 1753 A. Murphy Gray's-Inn Jrnl. No. 36 True Intellig., A Thief, a low Fellow, a Footer. 1825 Jennings Somerset Gloss., Footer..a scurvy fellow; a term of contempt. 1847 Halliwell, Footer, to idle. 1893 Stevenson Vailima Lett. (1895) xxx. 273 Fussy footering German barons. |