foot [OE] An Old English word that appears as far back as the epic poem Beowulf, probably written in the 700s, foot comes from an ancient root which also gives us Greek pous, the root of words as varied as *antipodes, *octopus, and podium [M18th], and Latin pes ‘foot’ (see pawn). The measure equal to 12 inches was originally based on the length of a man’s foot.

When we use feet of clay [E19th] to suggest that a respected person has a fundamental flaw, we are reaching back to a story from biblical times. In the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, dreamed about a magnificent idol which had feet ‘part of iron and part of clay’, and which was broken into pieces. The prophet Daniel interpreted this to mean that the kingdom would eventually fall. To have one foot in the grave [LME] is to be near death. See also first.