footling
English
Etymology 1
From footle + -ing.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈfuːt.lɪŋ/
Audio (UK) (file)
Adjective
footling (comparative more footling, superlative most footling)
- trivial, silly and irritating.
- 1919, Jerome K. Jerome, chapter 16, in All Roads Lead to Calvary:
- He was explaining to her things about the air service. . . . "Isn't it rather dangerous work?" she asked. She felt it was a footling question even as she asked it.
- 1922, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 7, in Right Ho, Jeeves:
- Only a couple of days ago I was compelled to take him off a case because his handling of it was so footling.
- 1948 May 24, "United Nations: Over to You," Time (retrieved 14 Oct 2013):
- For 28 footling days the 58-nation General Assembly had been debating the now-famous U.S. afterthought: to postpone partition and substitute a U.N. trusteeship for Palestine.
- 1962 December, “Letters to the Editor: Towards 75 m.p.h. expresses”, in Modern Railways, page 429:
- They are electrically hauled, and travel at over 70 m.p.h. between stops, but they make five stops at footling little country towns and take two hours for the 98-mile run.
- 2009 July 15, Carlo Rotella, "The Genre Artist," New York Times (retrieved 14 Oct 2013):
- “Why did you persist in writing hurlothrumbo romances of the footling sort favored by mooncalfs?”
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Translations
Trivial; unimportant
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Verb
footling
- present participle of footle
Etymology 2
foot + -ling.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈfʊt.lɪŋ/
Audio (UK) (file)
Noun
footling (plural footlings)
- A fetus oriented so that, at birth, its foot will emerge first. A type of breech birth.
- 2006 Jan. 29, "Excerpt from Physical: An American Checkup" by James McManus, New York Times (retrieved 14 Oct 2013):
- In 1999 my fourth child (third daughter) made an unexpected footling breech presentation.
- 2006 Jan. 29, "Excerpt from Physical: An American Checkup" by James McManus, New York Times (retrieved 14 Oct 2013):