Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Lacking importance or significance; trifling.
- adjective Stupid; inept.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Having the foot foremost: applied in obstetrics to cases in which a foot presents.
- noun A small foot.
- noun Anything no bigger than one's foot.
- noun One of the strips of board which run longitudinally on top of the frames in the bottom of a boat.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective small and of little importance.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Trivial ;unimportant ;useless ;silly ;inept ;irritating . - verb Present participle of
footle . - noun A fetus oriented so that, at birth, its feet will emerge first. A type of
breech birth .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective (informal) small and of little importance
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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JUNO [huffily] I don't know what you call footling --
Overruled George Bernard Shaw 1903
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I would rather we attempt big, serious change and fail, than fiddlearound with footling, meaningless promises, limping through office andclinging to power for the sake of it.
Yahoo! News: Latest news headlines News Headlines | Top Stories 2010
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While pacifying those who worry about liberty with a footling commission, composed largely of lawyers from left and right, who cancel each other out, Clarke proposes a vast extension of secrecy in the civil courts and inquests, which will suppress evidence of corruption and negligence in high places, as well as reduce access to justice and the public's right to know.
Ken Clarke is ready to betray 800 years of British justice | Henry Porter 2012
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This is no mere technical detail of footling importance: it goes to the very heart of the legitimacy of the Parliament which for now claims to have authority in this land and as such this matter will not go away.
Arrogant Sarkozy Forgets That Government Requires Consent 2008
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Yet the freedoms which Englishmen have won over nearly eight hundred years have now been sold to a couple of Labour fellow-travellers for their votes so that the UK will now soften its policy towards Cuba and the issue of the all too footling sanctions against Cuba the EU maintains as a fig-leaf.
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This is really not the time for such games; for footling schemes and yet more fraudulent job creation initiatives involving the spending of money Britain doesn't have.
What's in Alistair Darling's Future? Iain Martin 2010
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This is really not the time for such games; for footling schemes and yet more fraudulent job creation initiatives involving the spending of money Britain doesn't have.
What's in Alistair Darling's future? Iain Martin 2010
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As for the British people and their footling objections to this most wonderful of treaties, why, a pox on them!
Archive 2008-01-20 2008
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This is really not the time for such games; for footling schemes and yet more fraudulent job creation initiatives involving the spending of money Britain doesn't have.
What's in Alistair Darling's Future? Iain Martin 2010
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This is really not the time for such games; for footling schemes and yet more fraudulent job creation initiatives involving the spending of money Britain doesn't have.
What's in Alistair Darling's future? Iain Martin 2010
sionnach commented on the word footling
Not to be confused with footlong.
Go ahead. I dare you not to think of genitalia.
January 4, 2009
plethora commented on the word footling
Well I wasn't thinking about that until you said it!
January 4, 2009