Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A richly ornamented cloth draped over the back of a horse and touching the ground on both sides.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A large sumpter-cloth, or housing of a horse, formerly in use and considered a mark of dignity and state.
  • noun A carpet or rug.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Formerly, a housing or caparison for a horse.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic A housing or caparison for a horse.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

foot +‎ cloth

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Examples

  • It was surmounted by a canopy, which, as well as the cushions, side-curtains, and the very footcloth, was composed of crimson velvet, embroidered with seed-pearl.

    Kenilworth 2004

  • Belianis, Bevis, or his own Guy of Warwick, had ever been subjected to — Captain Coxe, we repeat, did alone, after two such mischances, rush again into the heat of conflict, his bases and the footcloth of his hobby-horse dropping water, and twice reanimated by voice and example the drooping spirits of the English; so that at last their victory over the

    Kenilworth 2004

  • London, where by foure notable merchants richly apparelled was presented to him a right faire and large gelding richly trapped, together with a footcloth of Orient crimson veluet, enriched with gold laces, all furnished in most glorious fashion, of the present, and gift of the sayde merchants: where vpon the Ambassadour at instant desire mounted, riding on the way towards Smithfield barres, the first limites of the liberties of the Citie of London.

    The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation 2003

  • Himself of a huge big post made a hunting nag, and another for daily service of the beam of a vinepress: and of a great oak made up a mule, with a footcloth, for his chamber.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • Himself of a huge big post made a hunting nag, and another for daily service of the beam of a vinepress: and of a great oak made up a mule, with a footcloth, for his chamber.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • I stood some time and admired the riches and magnificence of the room; but above all, the footcloth, the cushions and the sofas, which were all lined with Indian stuff or gold, with pictures of men and beasts in silver admirably executed.

    Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights E. Dixon

  • Catholic Majesties rose and withdrew towards the left corner of their footcloth, talked together for a short time, after which the Queen remained where she was, and the King advanced to me, I being where I had been during all the ceremony.

    Court Memoirs of France Series — Complete Various

  • Fling the red shreds, a footcloth meet for Henry of Navarre.

    Ivry 1895

  • Queen to tread over gently, as Fuller tells us, "rewarding him afterwards with many suits for his so free and seasonable tender of so fair a footcloth," or at the story of the rhymes the couple cut on the glass with their diamond rings.

    Some Diversions of a Man of Letters Edmund Gosse 1888

  • Fling the red shreds, a footcloth meet for Henry of Navarre.

    Poems Every Child Should Know The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library 1884

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