footed

1. 1
   adjective

   Standing on or equipped with a foot or feet; also, in compounds such as web-footed, having feet of the kind or number named.

   The cake stand was elegantly footed, lifting the platter above the table.

   Web-footed birds paddle far more efficiently than their land-dwelling relatives.

   Note

   Mostly a second element, and a favorite of poets. Spenser harnesses a fiery-footed team, Shakespeare's Coriolanus warns of a tiger-footed rage, and Milton's damned are hauled off by harpy-footed Furies. Dekker simply counts, with six-footed creatures. Write the compound with a hyphen. The pattern is old: Middle English already had foted, foot plus -ed.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of foot.

   The company footed the travel expenses for every delegate.

   He footed up the column of figures before closing the ledger.

   Note

   A regular weak form: one spelling serves the past tense (she footed the bill) and the participle (the bill was footed by the firm). Its most familiar partner is bill, because to foot a bill is to pay it. Setting foot on a place is now archaic, and setting something on foot is obsolete. The spelling is shared with the adjective meaning 'having feet', which is a separate formation.

3. 3
   adjective

   Having a foot: that is, a base or support on which something stands.

   The trophy rests on a wide footed base of polished brass.

   The lamp was footed, standing on three slender legs.

   Note

   This one is said of vessels: a bowl, cup or glass raised on a base of its own instead of sitting flat. Unlike the compounding sense, it usually stands alone before its noun, as in a footed bowl. Nothing has to say what kind of foot is meant, because the vessel's base is the only foot in question.

4. 4
   adjectivein compounds

   Composed of, or arranged into, metrical feet of a specified character or number.

   The ode is irregularly footed, its rhythm shifting from line to line.

   A tightly footed couplet closes each section of the poem.

   Note

   Prosody borrows the counting habit of the 'having feet' sense. A six-footed line has six metrical units, just as a six-footed creature has six legs. The word usually appears in such compounds, with the number or kind of foot in front. Used alone with an adverb, as in irregularly footed, it describes how the meter is built rather than how long the line runs.

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