footling

English

Etymology 1

From footle +‎ -ing.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfuːt.lɪŋ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

footling (comparative more footling, superlative most footling)

1. 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”, in Time, retrieved 14 October 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”, in New York Times, retrieved 14 October 2013:

     “Why did you persist in writing hurlothrumbo romances of the footling sort favored by mooncalfs?”

Translations

Trivial; unimportant

• Bulgarian: незначителен (bg) (neznačitelen), тривиален (bg) (trivialen)
• Finnish: joutava (fi), vähäpätöinen (fi)

Verb

footling

1. present participle and gerund of footle

Etymology 2

From foot +‎ -ling.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfʊt.lɪŋ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

Noun

footling (plural footlings)

2. A fetus oriented so that, at birth, its foot will emerge first. A type of breech birth.
   • 2006 January 29, James McManus, “Excerpt from Physical: An American Checkup”, in New York Times, retrieved 14 October 2013:

     In 1999 my fourth child (third daughter) made an unexpected footling breech presentation.