adj
Meaning 1
trivial, silly and irritating.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Standard Lemma guide
footling
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
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UK: /ˈfuːt.lɪŋ/
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Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
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UK: /ˈfʊt.lɪŋ/
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Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
noun
Meaning 2
A fetus oriented so that, at birth, its foot or feet will emerge first. A type of breech birth.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
Meaning 3
present participle and gerund of footle
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: form-of, gerund, participle, present
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
adjective satellite
Meaning 4
(informal) small and of little importance
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
Examples
- a fiddling sum of money
- a footling gesture
- our worries are lilliputian compared with those of countries that are at war
- a little (or small) matter
- a dispute over niggling details
- limited to petty enterprises
- piffling efforts
- giving a police officer a free meal may be against the law, but it seems to be a picayune infraction
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: fiddling, lilliputian, little, niggling, piddling, piffling, petty, picayune, trivial
Antonyms: none provided
History
Etymology
From footle + -ing.
Etymology tree English foot Proto-Indo-European *-lósder. Proto-Germanic *-ilaz Proto-Indo-European *-n̥kwo-der.? Proto-Indo-European *-nós Proto-Indo-European *-iHnos Proto-Germanic *-īnaz Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz ? Proto-Germanic *-ingaz Proto-Germanic *-ilingaz Proto-West Germanic *-ling Old English -ling Middle English -ling English -ling English footling From foot + -ling.
Across languages
Translations
4 source translations are retained for this English entry.
- Bulgarian: незначителен (neznačitelen) — Trivial; unimportant
- Bulgarian: тривиален (trivialen) — Trivial; unimportant
- Finnish: joutava — Trivial; unimportant
- Finnish: vähäpätöinen — Trivial; unimportant