flatfoot
Americannoun
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Also called: splayfoot. a condition in which the entire sole of the foot is able to touch the ground because of flattening of the instep arch
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a slang word (usually derogatory) for a policeman
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of flatfoot
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
There was clogging, stomping and flatfoot dancing; the Dutch and English square-dancing with the Africans and the Irish.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 26, 2021
At seventy-five, he has the florid, bulbous mug of a cartoon flatfoot, if that flatfoot were descended from Lithuanian Talmudists and six generations of Jerusalemites.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 10, 2014
In comparison, Hauer’s silver-haired superman is more human than human, and finally more complex than Ford’s victimized flatfoot.
From Time ● Jun. 25, 2012
It is suited more for seated audiences than the foot-stomping dance I saw in Fries, which is known as flatfoot.
From New York Times ● May 20, 2011
Impressions of the feet are made in order to detect weakness of the arch or flatfoot.
From The Making of a Trade School by Mary Schenck Woolman
The ward bosses, the flatfeet and the job hunters who came to deal with Higgins called Bill Boyle "Onie's Diplomatic Doorman."
From Time Magazine Archive
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Like road-company Kenneth Starrs, inspectors general and their flatfoots roam through the private lives of public officials.
From Time Magazine Archive
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One of the town flatfoots came down and stared in, chewing gum methodically.
From Hooded Detective, Volume III No. 2, January, 1942 by Various
It would be amusing to watch those flatfoots sitting around trying to sift a motive out of the thing.
From Hooded Detective, Volume III No. 2, January, 1942 by Various
"Red wins—," and the rest was lost in the quick buzz of excitement, for at Bradfield's hundred dollar flatfoots were rare.
From Loaded Dice by Ellery H. Clark
Well, they bursts, and out comes the flatfoots, opens the gates, and lets the Royal Artillery in; and then every man fills his sack with silver, and gold, and precious stones, after a leetle scrimmaging.
From Canada and the Canadians Volume I by Richard Henry Bonnycastle
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.