hotfoot

English

Etymology

From Middle English hot-fot, hot fot, equivalent to hot +‎ foot.

Noun

hotfoot (plural hotfoots)

1. (US) The prank of secretly inserting a match between the sole and upper of a victim's shoe and then lighting it.

Adjective

hotfoot

1. Moving with haste or zeal.
   • 1938, Elwyn Brooks White, The Fox of Peapack, and Other Poems, page 137:

     Half the populace are idle, / Half are busy in a room; / All are gravebound from the cradle, / All are hotfoot for their doom.

Adverb

hotfoot

1. (British) Hastily; without delay.

Translations

Hastily

• Bulgarian: бързо (bg) (bǎrzo), спешно (bg) (spešno)
• German: schnell (de), unverzüglich (de)

Verb

hotfoot (third-person singular simple present hotfoots, present participle hotfooting, simple past and past participle hotfooted)

1. (transitive) To run (a distance).
   • 2007, R.C. Harvey, Meanwhile...:

     He hotfooted the four-and-a-half blocks across town to the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and checked out the books Patterson had mentioned—and everything else about China he could quickly think of.

   • 2010, Eric Hammel, Coral and Blood: The U.S. Marine Corps’ Pacific Campaign, page 55:

     The Ford was shot up heavily, so Larkin hotfooted the last mile to Ewa. Once there, he took cover beneath a truck as unchallenged Zeros strafed the neatly parked MAG-21 aircraft and the base facilities.

Derived terms

• hotfoot it
• hotfoot spell

Translations

To run

• Bulgarian: тичам (bg) (tičam)
• German: rennen (de)

Anagrams

• foothot