footsie

Also foot·sy,

[foot-see]

noun

Informal.

1. Sometimes footsies. the act of flirting or sharing a surreptitious intimacy.

Footsie

¹

/ ˈfʊtsɪ /

noun

1. an informal name for Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index

footsie

²

/ ˈfʊtsɪ /

noun

1. informal,  flirtation involving the touching together of feet, knees, etc (esp in the phrase play footsie )

Word History and Origins

Origin of footsie¹

First recorded in 1930–35; foot + -sie, spelling variant of -sy

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. play footsie / footsies with,

   1. to flirt with, especially by clandestinely touching someone's foot or leg; be slyly or furtively intimate with.

   2. to seek advantage from, especially by discreet or stealthy means; curry favor with.

Example Sentences

A “conservatism” that plays footsie—or worse—with antisemitism and white identity politics, and those who traffic them, doesn’t merit the name.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

On Wednesday he finally told his think-tank staff he wants to take responsibility, but the saga underscores the risks to the right from playing footsie with antisemites.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

More perplexing is that he was able to do so among some of the game’s top players, who at least played footsie with the notion that Naroditsky cheated, despite speculative-at-best reasoning.

Read more on Slate

But it was Sutton's guests, grime stars Footsie and Strategy, who took the weekly win to move back to the top of the table with only two weeks to go.

Read more on BBC

Footsie also got three correct results and no exact scores, but Strategy did better than anyone else with five correct results and no exact scores and, combined, gave them an average of 40 points and a potentially vital victory.

Read more on BBC