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Foot

Anatomy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The lower part of the leg used for standing and walking, associated with travel, grounding, and labor.

Detailed Definition
In poetry, the foot often marks a body's relationship to earth, distance, and movement. Bare feet may suggest vulnerability, childhood, ritual, or poverty, while tired feet can evoke work, pilgrimage, migration, or escape. The image can also carry formal significance because a poetic foot is a unit of meter, linking bodily walking to the rhythm of verse. Poets may use footsteps and feet to make time audible, showing departure, return, pursuit, or hesitation.
Example
Example in poetry:
“One foot in the grave” is an idiom poets can adapt to suggest age or danger; “The foot of the hill” extends anatomy into landscape and establishes scale; A poet might write “bare feet learned the grammar of gravel” to make walking an act of knowledge; “Her foot kept time on the floorboards” can make a small gesture carry rhythm and impatience
Additional Notes
Foot imagery connects the body to ground, roads, and work. Bare, wounded, or moving feet may indicate vulnerability, pilgrimage, escape, labor, or belonging in a particular place.
Other Meanings of “Foot”
Also Known As
Feet
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