six foot
six foot noun: the area between the closest rails of two parallel standard gauge railway lines, regardless of the actual distance.
Noun
six foot (uncountable)
- the area between the closest rails of two parallel standard gauge railway lines, regardless of the actual distance.
- Cattle are of course liable to stray on the line at these level crossings, but to prevent this, barriers are placed on each side of the crossing, and a deep trench is made in the four-foot and six-foot spaces, …1882, George P. Neele, Atlantic and American Notes, M'Corquodale & co., limited, Page 54
- Richardson dropped into the six-foot between the two engines, ran for a few yards, grabbed Mitchell's engine, and swung himself up. Mitchell had got to his feet by this time, but he made no move. Richardson shut off steam, reversed her, and brought her to a stand.1950 January, David L. Smith, “A Runaway at Beattock”, in Railway Magazine, page 54
Forms of six foot
| alternative form | 6-foot |
|---|---|
| alternative form | six-foot |
Origin of six foot
From the nominal distance of six feet between two adjacent railway lines in Great Britain.
Questions about six foot
- What does six foot mean?
- Six foot means the area between the closest rails of two parallel standard gauge railway lines, regardless of the actual distance.
- What part of speech is six foot?
- Six foot is a noun.
Words near six foot in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: six foot (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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Cite this entry: “six foot.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/six_foot. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.