Definitions

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

  • noun The middle part of the human foot that forms the instep and includes the five bones between the toes and the ankle.
  • noun The corresponding part of the hind foot in quadrupeds or of the foot in birds.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The middle segment of the three of which the foot, or third division of the hind limb, consists, considered with special reference to its bony structure.
  • noun In entomology: The first one of the joints of the tarsus, when it is large or otherwise distinguished from the rest, which are then called collectively the dactylus.
  • noun With some authors, the hind foot; the entire tarsus of each hind leg; each of the third pair of tarsi.
  • noun The sixth joint of a spider's leg, being the first of the two which form the foot.

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

  • noun (Anat.) That part of the skeleton of the hind or lower limb between the tarsus and phalanges; metatarse. It consists, in the human foot, of five bones. See Illustration in Appendix.

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

  • noun The part of the foot between the toes and the ankle, especially its five bones.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the skeleton of the human foot between the toes and the tarsus; the corresponding part of the foot in birds or of the hind foot in quadrupeds

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From New Latin metatarsus, from meta + tarsus.

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