Word.ws English Dictionary

feet of clay

feet of clay noun: in someone apparently strong and without failings, a hidden weakness which could lead to downfall.

Noun

feet of clay pl (plural only)

  1. (idiomatic, plural, plural-only) In someone apparently strong and without failings, a hidden weakness which could lead to downfall.
    • He was disillusioned to find that even Lincoln had feet of clay.
    • Those Pagod things of sabre-sway, / With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.1814, Lord Byron, Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte

feet of clay meaning in Tamil

feet of clay in Tamil

மறுபக்கம்

Origin of feet of clay

Used in the Bible, part of the description of the huge statue in the dream of Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar.

Questions about feet of clay

What does feet of clay mean?
Feet of clay means in someone apparently strong and without failings, a hidden weakness which could lead to downfall.
What is feet of clay in Tamil?
Feet of clay in Tamil is மறுபக்கம். See Feet of clay meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is feet of clay?
Feet of clay is a noun.

Words near feet of clay in the dictionary

  1. feesh
  2. feesing
  3. feet
  4. feet dry
  5. feet first
  6. feet of clay
  7. feet on the ground
  8. feet per second
  9. feet wet
  10. feet-first
  11. feetage

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: feet of clay (page history and authors); feet of clay (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-feet of clay.ogg.

Cite this entry: “feet of clay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/feet_of_clay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.