footy

English

Etymology 1

Alternative forms

• footie

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfʊti/

  • Audio (Australia):

    (file)

• (Scotland, Northern Ireland) IPA^(key): /ˈfʉte/, /fʉtɪ/, /fʉti/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʊti

Noun

footy (countable and uncountable, plural footies)

1. (uncountable, UK, Ireland) Football (association football) (soccer in US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand).
2. (uncountable, Australia) The game or sport of football, usually Australian rules football or rugby league, but not soccer.
   • 2022, Jane Harper, Exiles, page 118:

     But footy, especially this kind of footy, transcended family drama — that went without saying — so Erik Falk had of course invited his son.

3. (countable, Australia) The ball used in a game of footy.
   • 2022, Jane Harper, Exiles, page 105:

     Me and Charlie and Ben were out there one afternoon, messing around, kicking a footy and stuff, and this girl rode by.

4. (uncountable, New Zealand) Rugby union or rugby league.
5. (usually in the plural) A short sock.
6. (slang, countable) A football fan.

   Sam is a real footy, he's always watching it on TV and talking about it.

7. Footsy (flirting game where two people touch their feet together).
   • 1932, Movie Mirror, volume 3, page 76:

     He didn't even play footy under the table. I kept wishing he would!

   • 1994, Tim Page, Dawn Powell at Her Best, page 361:

     […] playing footy under the table with Bee Amidon finished that for her.

8. (informal) A footjob.

   he's getting a footy under the table

Derived terms

• footy tipping
• touch footy

Etymology 2

Compare Dutch vochtig. In the senses “insignificant, paltry; poorly kept, shoddy” Merriam-Webster suggests derivation from French foutu, past participle of foutre (“to copulate, fuck, screw”).

Alternative forms

• foughty

Adjective

footy (comparative more footy, superlative most footy) (UK, dialectal, dated)

1. Having foots (settlings).

   Synonyms: dreggish, dreggy

   footy oil or molasses

2. Of bad quality; mean, poor.
   • 1855, Charles Kingsley, “How Amyas Kept His Christmas Day”, in Westward Ho!: Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, […], volume II, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, page 6:

     [N]obody wants you to shoot crooked. Take good iron to it, and not footy paving-stones.

   • 1911, R. Austin Freeman, chapter XV, in The Eye of Osiris & the Vanishing Man:

     'Those sketches look rather footy,' I said; 'but I had to put something in my notebook.'