Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) transportation by foot.

1967–70

in DARE.

see separate entries.

see separate entries.

(US) cheap red wine.

1898		L.A. Times 15 June 5/1: He had made a call upon them with a big jug of wine [...] The red men took kindly to the ‘the foot juice’.
1903		S.F. Chron. 25 oct. 6/1: ‘Garcon, some more red paint, please.’ Or: ‘I presume you have some more of this foot-juice, waiter’. Or again [...] ‘Another quarter of Dago red’. And so they make merry over the cheap red wine.
1915		L.A. Times 27 Oct. 17/1: Just across the street [...] the spaghetti will be better , but the ‘foot juice’ not so good.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 129: The wine dumps, where wine bums or ‘winos’ hung out, interested me. Long, dark, dirty rooms with rows of rickety tables, and a long bar behind which were barrels of the deadly ‘foot juice’ or ‘red ink,’ as the winos called it.
1931		Pittsburgh Press (PA) 8 Oct. 18/3: Italians scorn these crushers and presses. They claim that the best wine is always ‘foot-juice’ which is made exatly like the phrase.
1944		Press-Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA) 4 Aug. 1/1: Since time immemorial the favorite Yank designation of ‘vin ordinaire’ [...] has been ‘foot juice’.

a highway robber.

c.1597

Shakespeare Henry IV Pt 1 I i: I am joined with no foot-land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers.

cheap (fourpenny) ale.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

(Aus.) idling away one’s time in boredom.

1941

Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.

see under scamp n.

(US) an infantryman.

1907

D. Runyon ‘The Defence of Strikerville’ in From First To Last (1954) 17: There was a whole battalion of foot-shakers in camp.

(US gay) a male street prostitute.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1988		H. Max Gay (S)language.

an infantryman, esp. as described by a cavalryman.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Foot wabbler; a contemptuous term for a foot soldier, frequently used by those of the cavalry.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 66: You’re a hoss wabbler from the army desertin your post .
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 314/2: foot wabblers, termes de mépris usités dans la cavalerie pour désigner les fantassins.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 266: WABLER [sic], a foot soldier.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 97: Wobbler, a foot soldier.

(US) a traditional, fundamentalist Baptist.

1879		Wyandott Herald (Kansas City, KS) 12 June 3/1: The branch of colored Baptists, known as the Foot Washers, marched [etc].
1883		Northern Pacific Farmer (Wadena, MN) 16 Aug. 3/7: The fet washers were invariably chosen from among the good, old colored brethren and sisters of ‘hard-shell’ persuasion.
1907		Wash. Post (DC) 3 Feb. 5/2: We have flourishing among us varieties of Baptists known as the ‘Foot Washers’ and the ‘Muddy Heads’.
1953		Randolph & Wilson Down in the Holler 245: foot-washing: n. A religious ceremony. People take off their shoes and stockings, and wash each other’s feet right in the church house. This is widely practiced by many of the Pentecostal sects, and by some backwoods Baptists.
2003		posting at FreeRepublic.com 23 Sept. 🌐 Don’t tell me – he’s a Methodist, right? No? How about a Mennonite? No? [...] A snakehandler? A footwasher?

(W.I., Trin.) a phr. used of one who is restless, esp. a woman.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

(W.I.) a phr. said of one who has missed their chance or has arrived too late, esp. for a meal.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

(US) of money, to amount to; thus fig. to work out, to sum up a person.

1865		G.A. Sala A Trip to Barbary 33: The Arab abhors statistics. He won’t be tabulated if he could help it, and were you to go to Algeria, Doctor Colenso, you would find a deeply rooted objection among the people to the reckoning, or footing-up, as the Americans call it, of anything animate or inanimate.
1872		J.D. McCabe Lights & Shadows 593: The panel houses are generally conducted by men, who employ the women to work for them. [...] The robberies nightly perpetrated foot up an immense aggregate.
1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 2 Jan. 6/2: The sum footed up $947.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 30 May 6/4: He recognised that […] if he left the final details to be carried out with the munificence of the local Kirby the bill would foot up to a tidy figure, so he just mapped out to a nicety how the obsequies should be carried out.

(Aus.) to travel by foot.

1946		W.E. Harney North of 23° 172: Natives went footwalk to Barraloola for assistance through the mud of the rainy season.
1952		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Dec. 12/1: Rosie, our housegirl, recently received a filial visit from her son. He ‘footwalked’ direct overland from tin Daly River to Darwin.
1963		F. Flynn Northern Gateway 138: He is known to have ‘footwalked’ far to the south and way over into West Australia during his younger, more adventurous days.
1984		K. Benterrak et al. Reading Country 109: So we went down the beach an’ we off—aall the way, footwalk.

1. to correct what needs improving.

1998		P. Doyle (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 184: ‘I’m not going to beg. I’m on the good foot’.
2004		Munoz & Luckman Transcultural Communication in Nursing 88: Get on the good foot means to correct what needs improving.

2. to do one’s best, to ‘put one’s best foot forward’.

1972		James Brown [album title] Get On The Good Foot.
2001		Guardian 13 Jul. 🌐 All these come at you in spadefuls as Li gets on the good foot to kick about a million acres of ass, and soon enough you’re standing on your seat cheering like a Viking.
2003		‘Teaching’ at Soul Line Dancing.com 🌐 Be Enthusiastic: I know there have been numerous times you were just not in an enthusiastic mood; I know because I’ve been there. But as a professional you know you must ‘get on the good foot’. People attend your class to obtain energy, which starts with you, they will take notice of any irritability you may have.

(US) to do something well, to succeed in a notable manner.

1882		Sthn Standard (Arkadelphia, AK) 15 Apr. 3/2: As the boys say, the Judge will ‘get there with both feet’.
1893		L. Chittenden ‘The Cowboys’ Christmas Ball’ in Ranch Verses 15: That old bass viol’s music just got there with both feet!
1900		E. Nye Bill Nye’s Remarks 494: [...] but when I do, I strive to get there with both feet.
1920		J. Huneker Painted Veils 193: She will get there with both feet, as the saying is.
1942		in T. Malone Pack Up Your Troubles 32: Want and hunger we could cheat, / And we’d get there with both feet.

1. to kick.

1896		F. Hutcheson Barkeep Stories 12: ‘Muggins [...] starts after dem again, but I gives him de foot an’ makes him lay quiet on de floor’.
1931		D. Runyon ‘Romance in the Roaring Forties’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 43: Lola steps up to him as if she is going to give him the foot.
1938		D. Runyon ‘Cemetery Bait’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 529: I give the foot to a female character who is on the raft [...] and ease her off into the water.

2. to throw out, to oust, to reject.

a.1904		D.G. Phillips Susan Lenox II 119: You’ve got to have the mon. or you get the laugh and the foot—the swift, hard kick [HDAS].
1914		E. O’Neill The Movie Man in Ten ‘Lost’ Plays (1995) 201: Some nerve to that greaser chicken giving a real white man the foot!
1922		Abbeville Press & Banner 28 Apr. 5/5: The ‘blues’ is a subject which deserves the biggest attention [...] We coime in contact with many ‘blues’, [...] the Monday morning ‘blues’ [...] the ‘crazy blues’ very common among boys [...] His girl gives him the ‘high foot’ [...] His heart is sad. He has those ‘crazy blues’.
1938		D. Runyon ‘The Big Umbrella’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 550: A dictator gives him the foot off the throne and then chases him out of the country.
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1952		(con. WWII) R. Thacher Captain 93: His girl gave him the foot.
1970		in DARE.

see under ass n.

1. to have an advantage in a chase.

1938

D. Runyon ‘The Lemon Drop Kid’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 375: He has to have plenty of early foot to beat them.

2. (US teen) as have feet, to dance well.

1960

Baltimore Sun (MD) Sun. Mag. 4 Dec. 9/1: He had feet, rodded a bomb that was real hairy, and stacked up as the ginchiest speed man in school.

(N.Z. prison) to desire to escape.

1999

D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 32: itchy feet n. The desire to 'do a runner,' escape from the prison.

(US) to drink heavily.

1944

L. Glassop We Were the Rats 26: The trump’s got his foot on the old rail.

a general interrog. aimed at a passing person.

1862		Era (London) 27 July 10/1: [T]he wretched infection now so stupidly prevalent, and which consists in such intensely silly interrogatories as How are your poor feet?
1863		Courier (Brisbane) 18 Aug. 7/4: You no longer hear the sarcastic inquiry ‘how are your poor feet?’ but the prevalent slang, heard everywhere, is ‘How are your spasms,’ or ‘Have you got the cramp?’ .
1863		G.A. Sala Breakfast in Bed 162: But how would you like a screeching multitude, fifty thousand strong, and with not one of whom, to the best of your knowledge, you had even a bowing acquaintance, to vociferate in your track – in the public street, mind – ‘Ya-a-a-h! How are your poor feet?’.
1876		Cork Examiner 31 July n.p.: It was the first London Exhibition that gave rise to the slang expression, how are your poor feet?
1883		Lancaster Gaz. 24 Nov. 5/1: In the days of petrified kidneys [...] ‘How are your poor feet?’ was a stereotyped form of interrogation often put, and intended as good humoured ‘chaff’.
1890		Town and Country (Sydney) 11 Jan. 19/4: Henry Irving’s revival of ‘The Dead Heart’ has revived a bit of slang... When the play was brought out originally, where one of the characters says, ‘My heart is dead, dead, dead!’ a voice from the gallery nearly broke up the drama with How are your poor feet? The phrase lived [F&H].
1893		Harper’s Mag. 87 July 307/1: There is little to choose between the how’s your poor feet? of London and the well, I should smile, of New York, for neither phrase had any excuse for existence, and neither had any hope of survival.

see under ass n.

to have sexual intercourse.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: make feet for children’s stockings, to beget children.
1790		‘Bumper Allnight. Esquire’ Honest Fellow 212: Toasts [...] The art of making feet for children’s stockings.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 49: Brodequiner. To copulate; ‘to make feet for children’s socks’.
1936		Archie Seale Man About Harlem 22 Aug. [synd. col.] The John McKenzies [...] are making feet for socks.
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 197: We would all agree that the best place to make feet for childrens’ shoes is on the device for manufacturing motors for tricycles.
1988		J. McDonald Dict. of Obscenity etc. 67: As far back as the eighteenth century we have [...] make feet for children’s stockings.

(US campus) a farewell.

1988

Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 7: my feet are stayin’ – goodby.

(US) to leave; to flee in panic.

1898		J. Fox Jr ‘Preachin’ on Kingdom-Come’ in Hell Fer Sartain and Other Stories n.p.: I jes takes my foot in my hand an’ ag’in I steps fer home.
1954		Wodehouse Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 144: I picked up the feet and lit out for the stables.
1996		Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage 238/2: pick up your foot/heels (Bdos, Gurn, Jmca || [...] put foot and run [...] To run away in panic; to flee as fast as your legs can carry you.

(US/W.I.) to run away.

1816		M. Lewis 16 Jan. in Journal of a West India Proprietor (1834) 109: One of my ladies [...] which were allowed holidays on my arrival, chose to pull foot, and did not return from her hiding place in the mountains. [Ibid.] 120: Peter, Peter was a black boy; / Peter, him pull foot one day.
1828		N.-Y. Enquirer 30 May 2/4: Finding that the contest was unequal, [...] two of the rogues pulled foot, and the prisoner, Wilson, [...] was following their example, when the complainant laid hands upon him.
1838		J.C. Neal Charcoal Sketches (1865) 15: Keep a toddling – pull foot and away!
1844		‘Jonathan Slick’ High Life in N.Y. II 210: I pulled foot up Beekman Street and acrost the Park.
1855		T. Haliburton Nature and Human Nature I 283: He pulls foot like a lamplighter.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 625: Pull foot, to, means, in Western slang, to make great haste.
1916		J.G. Cruickshank Black Talk 45: Boy, tek dis scrip to Mr. Abraham. And pull foot, yeh!
1950		Bennett, Clarke & Wilson Anancy Stories and Dialect Verse 54: Ma peep an se’ one wite oman / Dah pull foot fe May shop.
1996		Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage 238/2: make foot (Tbgo) || [...] pull foot (Jmca) || [...] take foot (Belz, CayI, Jmca, Neva) [...] To run away in panic; to flee as fast as your legs can carry you.

(US) to leave.

2023

F. Bill Back to the Dirt 69: ‘Put the feet to the street, Pie, ’fore I call the po-po’.

see under ass n.

to accelerate a motorcar.

[1930		‘Leslie Charteris’ Enter the Saint 102: ‘The accelerator won’t go down any further — unless I push it through the floor.’ ‘Then push it through the floor,’ instructed the Saint].
1952		E. Brown Trespass 48: Coleman would get his foot all the way down to the floor, and that old station wagon would really rip.

(US) to beg, to ‘hustle’, usu. for money.

1900		J. London ‘Jack London in Boston’ in Boston Eve. Post 26 May 32: Going to throw your feet for Java? I’ll put you on.
1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 58: You say that Bean-Town is throwin’ her feet harder than Chi tryin’ to be good.
1907		J. London Road 1: I could ‘throw my feet’ with the next one when it came to ‘slamming the gate’ for a ‘poke-out’.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 82: What’s the matter with you ‘throwing your feet’ and tackling pedestrians for your needs?
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 12: He can beg coin. He don’t have to throw his feet.
1923		‘Gila Monster Route’ N. Anderson Hobo 195: They had mooched the stem and threw their feet.
1925		K. Mullen ‘Westernisms’ in AS I:3 150: One who rustles doesn’t wait to write to his pastor, nor to go back to the hotel for a hankie, but he gets out and ‘throws his legs’ and ‘humps his tail,’ and ‘gets the bacon’.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 62: Throw your feet, kid, and get some cans for the Java.
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 44: They discussed their past adventures of throwin’ their feet (begging for food) and moochin’ the stem (panhandling).
1930		G. Milburn ‘Gila Monster Route’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 159: They had piped the stem and threw their feet, / And speared four bits for something to eat.

1. to beg.

1899		J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 397: THROW THE FEET: to beg, ‘hustle,’ or do anything that involves much action.
1926		AS I:4 251: Throw the feet—to beg.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 188: Throw the Feet.–To beg.

2. to hurry off.

1931

Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 188: Throw the Feet.– [...] To hurry away.