Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US 19C+) insignificant, worthless, despicable, futile.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Footy despicable, a footy fellow, a despicable fellow, from the French foutüe.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 265: I think it would be a very pretty piece of practice to the ship’s company to take her out from under that footy battery.
1888		Kipling ‘The Man Who Would be King’ Writings in Prose and Verse (1899) 73: Every footy little village for fifty miles has come in rejoiceful.
1895		‘’Arry on the Elections’ in Punch 27 July 39/1: Let big pots make the round o’ the pubs, and they won’t talk that footy fal-lal.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Sept. 43/1: ‘Soldiers! – in that footy little place?’[...] / ‘Soldiers? Yes, sir – plenty of ’em. Gorée’s an important military post, or the Frenchies think it is, at all events.’.

2. (US) foolish, simple.

1909		G.D. Chase ‘Cape Cod Dialect – Addenda’ in DN III:v 420: footy, adj. Simple-minded; lacking in judgment.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 214: footy, small, simple-minded. ‘I wish there weren’t so many footy girls.’.