Word.ws English Dictionary

footman

footman noun: a soldier who marches and fights on foot; a foot soldier.

footman: a soldier who marches and fights on foot; a foot soldier
Image: Romanov court photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

footman (plural footmen)

  1. (archaic) A soldier who marches and fights on foot; a foot soldier.
  2. A man in waiting; a male servant whose duties are to attend the door, the carriage, the table, etc.
    • […] on October 29, 1888, the Russian imperial train was derailed at Borki by defective track, and twenty-one persons were killed. Although these did not include the Emperor Alexander III, who escaped with a bruising, a footman serving coffee to him at the critical moment, and his dog, which was...1945 September and October, C. Hamilton Ellis, “Royal Trains—V”, in Railway Magazine, pages 251–252
    • And no use for anyone to tell Charles that this was because the Family was in mourning for Mr Granville Darracott […]: Charles might only have been second footman at Darracott Place for a couple of months when that disaster occurred, but no one could gammon him into thinking that my lord cared a...1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax
  3. (historical) A servant who runs in front of his master's carriage.
    • When he travelled by coach the vehicle was accompanied by his liveried footmen running alongside to ensure its smooth passage (footmen would not be indoor servants until a century later).2016, Anna Keay, chapter 8, in The Last Royal Rebel, London: Bloomsbury
  4. A metallic stand with four feet, for keeping anything warm before a fire.
  5. A moth of the family Arctiidae (or subfamily Arctiinae); so called from its livery-like colors.
    Synonyms:
    footman moth
    1. Especially, a common footman (Manulea lurideola).
  6. A bar that connects the treadle of a spinning wheel to the wheel.

Proper noun capitalized: Footman

Footman (plural Footmans)

  1. A surname.

footman meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

footman in Tamil

காலாப்படை வீரன்

footman in Urdu

خادم, نوکر, پیادہ, تابع

footman in Malayalam

പരിചാരകൻ, പദചാരി, പദാതൻ, കാലാൾഭടൻ

footman in Kannada

ಮನೆಯಾಳು, ಸೇವಕ, ನೌಕರ, ಕಿಂಕರ

Synonyms of footman

Forms of footman

Noun
pluralfootmen
Proper noun
pluralFootmans

Plural of footman: footmen

Origin of footman

From Middle English fotman, footman, foteman (“foot soldier, running footman”), from Old English *fōtman, *fōtmann (attested only as Old English fēþman, fēþemann (“footman”), equivalent to foot + man.

Words formed from footman

Phrases with footman

Questions about footman

What does footman mean?
Footman means a soldier who marches and fights on foot; a foot soldier.
What is footman in Tamil?
Footman in Tamil is காலாப்படை வீரன். See Footman meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is footman?
Footman can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of footman?
The plural of footman is footmen.

Words near footman in the dictionary

  1. footloose and fancy-free
  2. footlooseness
  3. footly
  4. footmaker
  5. footmakers
  6. footman
  7. footman moth
  8. footman moths
  9. footmanhood
  10. footmanly
  11. footmanry

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: footman (page history and authors); Footman (page history and authors); footman (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); footman (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); footman (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); footman (Kannada 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Usmaan (Middle river exports)-footman.wav.

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