Word.ws English Dictionary

first footing

first footing noun: the practice, during Hogmanay, of visiting friends and family, especially to be the first person to cross a home's threshold after midnight on New Year's Eve bearing a small gift.

Noun

first footing (uncountable)

  1. (Scotland) The practice, during Hogmanay, of visiting friends and family, especially to be the first person to cross a home's threshold after midnight on New Year's Eve bearing a small gift.

Forms of first footing

alternative formfirst-footing

Origin of first footing

From Scots tae first-fit (“to be the first to visit at the new year”, literally “to first-foot”).

Questions about first footing

What does first footing mean?
First footing means the practice, during Hogmanay, of visiting friends and family, especially to be the first person to cross a home's threshold after midnight on New Year's Eve bearing a small gift.
What part of speech is first footing?
First footing is a noun.

Words near first footing in the dictionary

  1. first floors
  2. first flush
  3. first flushes
  4. first folio
  5. first folios
  6. first footing
  7. first freedom rights
  8. First French Empire
  9. first fruits
  10. first fundamental form
  11. first gear

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: first footing (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.

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