Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Footing   /fˈʊtɪŋ/   Listen
Footing

noun
1.
Status with respect to the relations between people or groups.  Synonym: terms.  "On a friendly footing"
2.
A relation that provides the foundation for something.  Synonyms: basis, ground.  "He worked on an interim basis"
3.
A place providing support for the foot in standing or climbing.  Synonym: foothold.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Footing" Quotes from Famous Books



... take a landward route to Kinkell, among the shore rocks; for though the path was often a mere footing, it was well known to him; and as for the stormy weather, it seemed only a part of the darker and fiercer tempest in his own soul. He left Maggie early. She watched him climbing with bent head the misty heights, until a projecting rock hid him from view; then she went ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr

... of Parliament and the proposals of the five English Commissioners were far in advance of any wishes which the colonists had expressed before the Declaration of Independence, and placed the colonists on the footing of Englishmen—all that the Earl of Chatham and Mr. Burke had ever advocated—all that the free, loyal, and happy Dominion of Canada enjoys at this day—all and nothing more than was required for the unity of the empire and of the Anglo-Saxon race; but the leaders of Congress had determined upon ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... intimate, in easy Canadian fashion, with the newcomers; that is, with the heads of the household, with the romping children and the pretty babies. The young girls were not sufficiently forward in social arts to speak much to a visitor, and with Sophia he did not feel at all on a sure footing. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... Farragut, who had so long cherished the hope that its fall should have been the brilliant achievement of his own service. In his mortification he used an expression which, in the light of his own subsequent career, seems a twofold prophecy. "The navy would stand on a different footing to-day if our ships had made the attack. It was all we could do, and should have been done at all hazards. Commodore Conner thought differently, however, and the old officers at home backed his opinion; but they all paid the penalty—not one of ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... stood victors upon that seemingly impregnable fortress, and received the submission of the Queres, who for three-quarters of a century thereafter remained tractable. In that interval, the priests came to Acoma and held footing for fifty years, until the bloody uprisal of 1680 occurred, in which priest, soldier and settler were massacred or driven from the land, and every vestige of their occupation was extirpated. After the resubjection of the natives ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... The views of the centurion were of a far different nature. In giving his daughter to the patrician he had meanly intended thereby to rise high in life—had anticipated ready promotion beyond what his ignorance would have justified—had supposed that he would be admitted upon an equal social footing among the friends of Sergius, not realizing that his own native roughness and brutishness must have forbidden such a connection—had dazzled his eyes too wilfully with pictures of the wealth and influence and glory that would fall to his lot. As long, therefore, as so many of those gilded imaginings ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... tent when we appeared had come up to look at the new arrivals, and when they heard two of their officers attacking Aiken they crowded still closer in front of us, forming a big half-circle. Each of them apparently was on a footing with his officers of perfect comradeship, and listened openly to what was going forward as though it were a personal concern of his own. They had even begun to discuss it among themselves, and made ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... previous to crossing a streamlet 9 metres wide and 1 ft. deep—flowing towards the west. We had no end of trouble near these streamlets, as they flowed between precipitous banks 50 to 70 ft. high. There was no trail. The animals frequently lost their footing over the slippery, steep slope, and rolled down, baggage and all, until they reached the bottom; or else they would sometimes stick half way down against trees and liane, and we had the greatest difficulty in ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... the point abruptly, feeling as a man who has lost his footing in a steep place and is powerless to climb back. Perhaps even he was vaguely conscious of something colossal hidden away behind ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... to ignore the basal fact, which is that plant life in any form is a defiance of current conditions. Art has already begun when natural processes assume a form that feeds itself, reproduces itself, and grows. The first organisms have only a local footing; they are rooted in the soil, and can turn to their advantage only the conditions characteristic of a time and place. Eventually there evolves a more resourceful unit of life, like the gardener with ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry

... Floyd, Dewey, and others, that I find myself in a maze of bewildering uncertainty. The Squire and Ralph are at loggerheads, and seem to me to be getting matters snarled up. There is no denying the fact that this summary footing of our accounts, as executors, has tended to cripple affairs. We were working up to the full extent of capital invested, and the absence of a hundred thousand dollars—or its representative security—has made financiering a thing of ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur

... driven her own canoe to the far side of the goat and now seized the beast's horn. He could not fight in the water and Wyn and Frank slowly guided him along the shore until they reached a sloping piece of beach where he could, at least, get a footing. But he lay down, half in and half out ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... and we had to carry some men into the cockpit, for one shot we received, we certainly returned ten. The action had continued about an hour, when, by the continual cannonading, the light wind was beaten down, and it fell dead calm. This put us again upon a more equal footing, as the Calliope had not ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... civilization had begun to exert its power, and society had assumed a legal and determined shape—to depart from all these things, seeking a new home in an inhospitable wilderness, where they could only gain a footing by severe labor, constant strife, and sleepless vigilance? To be capable of doing all this, from any motive, a man must be a strange compound of qualities; but that compound, strange as it is, has done, and is doing, more to reclaim the west, and change the wilderness into a garden, than ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... the walls of Sicca, and are flung against them into the ditch. Not a moment's hesitation or delay; they recover their footing, they climb up the wood or stucco, they surmount the parapet, or they have entered in at the windows, filling the apartments, and the most private and luxurious chambers, not one or two, like stragglers at forage or rioters after a victory, but in order ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... the name assumed by M. Nicollet.[227] The publisher informs us that when the hoax first appeared day by day in a morning paper, the circulation increased fivefold, and the paper obtained a permanent footing. Besides this, an edition of 60,000 was sold off in ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... that his poverty would naturally be an objection to him in Roberval's eyes; but in respect of birth and position he was fully Marguerite's equal, and now that she was about to accompany her uncle to Canada, where, in a new sphere of life, all would be placed upon a more equal footing, he had gained courage to offer himself as her suitor. But De Roberval not only refused to listen to him, but dismissed him in such haughty terms that the young man's pride rebelled, and he demanded an explanation. High words ensued, and a quarrel was only averted ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis

... enough to perceive that these two ideas, spirit and matter, stand on a similar footing. Less lucid thinkers have boldly denied the existence of spirit while asserting that of matter. Locke's system would not allow him to believe that either conception depended on the nature of the mind itself. He therefore rejected the claims of substance as unequivocally as those of spirit, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... with orchids. Many of the latter were in full bloom, forming masses of brilliant color. In making the descent from here, we found the slope composed of slippery limestone, with sharp, rain-channeled surfaces, where our horses with great difficulty kept their footing. Soon after we were down, we reached ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... but narrow outlets for flight or pursuit. It chanced, also, that the river had been in flood a few days before, and had left a deep muddy pool of water upon the level ground where the Forum now stands; so that men's footing was not certain, but difficult and treacherous. Here a piece of good fortune befell the Sabines as they heedlessly pressed forward. Curtius, one of their chiefs, a man with a reputation for dashing courage, rode on horseback ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... is food going that their smooth carapaces form a more or less continuous raft across the river. On that unsteady slippery bridge the Langur monkeys (Semnopithecus entellus) venture out and in spite of vicious snaps secure a share of the booty. This picture of the monkeys securing a footing on the moving mass of turtle-backs is almost a diagram of sheer dexterity. It illustrates the spirit of adventure, the will to experiment, which is, we believe, the main motive-force in ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... a second of the horror that she had felt when waiting for the sound of Leddy's shot in Bill Lang's store. She saw his outspread hands clutching the seam above; watched for them to let go. But they held; the foot groped and got its footing again, and he worked his ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... sovereign's favor. Coello was a very different man from the Master, a child of the moment, varying every day. Sometimes haughty and repellent, on other occasions a gay, merry companion, who had jested with his own children and Ulrich also, as if all were on the same footing. If today . . . but Ulrich did not have much time for such reflections; a few minutes after Pablo left, the door was torn open, and the whole Coello family rushed joyously to meet him; Isabella first. Sanchez followed close behind her, then came the artist, next his stout, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... among the Hebrews, from whom Mohammed borrowed the conception. His gospel was essentially militant and proselytising. Nothing can resist a blend of the aesthetic and combative instincts; within a century of the founder's death his successors had conquered Central Asia, and gained a permanent footing in Europe. In the tenth century a horde of Afghan Moslems ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... associated in the very closest terms of comradeship. But somehow Captain Jack Maitland after the first months succeeding his return from the war had drawn apart. Disappointed, perplexed, hurt, she vainly had striven to restore the old footing between the young man and her daughters. Young Maitland had taken up his medical studies for a few months at his old University in Toronto and so had been out of touch with the social life of his home town. Then after he had "chucked" his course as impossible he had at ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... while a blush suffused her ingenuous countenance; and I am sure it was the first time that she read in my mind even the possibility of any weakness of mine in reference to her. Still she did not cease to continue her visits upon the same friendly footing, with a little mere reserve and respect, such as I wished it to be; and I was ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico

... visibly to shrink and become in the instant an old man—older by twenty years. As they climbed back again, his shoulders drooped and his breath came hard. As they neared the top, Bertrand turned and gave him his aid to gain a firm footing above. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... end of three weeks I was on that footing with Emma which precedes a fall. The fall would indeed have taken place much sooner had I known where to bring it about. The girl lived at home, and utterly refused to go to an hotel. I did not know how to manage, but at last ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... naked Malays, armed with their terrible krises, swarming on every part of the vessel; the Chinamen with pikes, muskets, and stink-balls fighting with the courage of despair to keep the boarders at bay. As yet the Malays had not gained a permanent footing on the deck, but for every man that was felled or hurled back into the praus there were a dozen to fill the gap, and the most valorous of fighters could not long contend against ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... and lurched and dipped, threatening every moment to go to pieces. The waves splashed and drenched them, and the swift current carried them faster and faster down to the sea. It was all Dick and his little company could do to keep their footing, and still the plucky little fellow stood ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning

... I will quote the just and striking observations of an excellent modern writer. "In whatever village," says he, "the fanatics get a footing, drunkenness and swearing,—sins which, being more exposed to the eye of the world, would be ruinous to their great pretensions to superior sanctity—will, perhaps, be found to decline; but I am convinced, from personal observation, that every species of fraud and falsehood—sins ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... the ranch. They were riding hard. Thereafter Pringle had no mercy on his horse. Ride as he might, those who followed had the inner circle; when he rounded the fires and struck the hill his start was perilously slight. While the footing was soft he urged the wearied horse up the slope; at the first rocky space he abandoned the poor beast lest the floundering of shod hoofs should betray him. He took off saddle and bridle; he hung the canteen over his shoulder and pressed ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... his coat, and I stripped mine. The seconds chose the ground where the turf was short and firm, and yet yielding enough to give good footing. We faced each other, my antagonist baring an arm which, despite the bejeweled hand, was to the full as big-muscled as my own. My glance went from his weapon, a rather heavy German blade, straight and slender-pointed, ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... had said this, Phoebus Apollo laid out all the foundations throughout, wide and very long; and upon these the sons of Erginus, Trophonius and Agamedes, dear to the deathless gods, laid a footing of stone. And the countless tribes of men built the whole temple of wrought stones, to be ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... have always expected to do, but have never yet done, I missed my footing at the top of the escalator, and my desire to outstrip my enemies was realised beyond my wildest hopes as I crashed, by a series of petrifying somersaults, down the entire flight, to be belched forth like a sausage from a machine ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various

... for cooking or drinking then for other specific purposes, had been put to the proof time out of mind, in an empirical fashion; though it was not till the reign of the Good Duke Alfred that a series of classical experiments placed our knowledge of their medicinal properties on a sound scientific footing. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... which return'd no more, Did show she footing found, for all the flood, So when good souls, departed through death's door, Come not again, it ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... there was so much that I could not deny. And he gave no chance for argument. Quickly jumping from point to point he pictured a harbor of slaves overburdened, driven into fierce revolt. It was hard to keep my footing. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... ornately ridiculous travesties upon the truth that facts sometimes are arranged to make. But how little did they know what they were building! For they and their kind all over America working in the darkness of their own selfish desires, were laying footing stones—quite substantial yet necessary—for the structure of a growing civilization which in its time, stripped of its scaffolding and extraneous debris, was to stand among the nations of the earth as a tower of righteousness ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... courage is high and the hand strong, and opportunity fertile, circumstance as a block of precious many-coloured marble out of which to carve fine fortune for ourselves and those we love—he wandered in darkness, insecure of footing, missing the very end and object for which earthly existence has been bestowed upon us mortals. He was sad and homesick for that which he had not; yet ignorant of the nature of his own loss, disposed to blame the constitution of ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... and slipped his feet into his shoes. Then he let himself cautiously down to the adjoining roof, steeper even than the one on which they had stood. She bent low over the tiles, so that her face was very close to his as he found his footing ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... property of matter. When we have passed that, we have a third stoppage, the introduction of Reason or Intelligence; and then a fourth, the introduction of the Spiritual faculties, which cannot be placed on the same footing as mere reason. So that to get over the first point, and dispense with a Cause or a Creator of matter, is of no avail: it is incredible that there should be no Creator of matter, but that there should be a Creator of life—an Imparter of reason, ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell

... surrounded by something else," Henry explained. "Come on now, Sol. Watch your footing. Don't get yourself any ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... before you will see, and understand it, and act upon it, too, as promptly as the wisest among them. Don't you know that I am the object of your father's charity—that his bounty feeds me—and that it would not be seemly that the world should behold me on a familiar footing of equality or intimacy with the daughter of my benefactor—my patron—without whom I should probably starve, or be a ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... indifferently to all cults, this patronage in common, more insulting than abandonment, this equal treatment[5211] which places the pulpit of truth and the pulpits of falsehood, the ministry of salvation and the ministries of perdition, on the same footing. Nothing is more serviceable for alienating a Catholic clergy, for making it consider civil power as foreign, usurping, or even inimical, for detaching the Gallican Church from its French center, for driving it back towards its ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... the footing became all rock. Carmena stopped on a flat ledge and flung the big canteen she was carrying as far as she could up the arroyo. She then changed from her boots to the long-legged moccasins that she had hidden ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... the said murderer merits the getting of a Remission from his Majesty the King, especially as I was not guilty of any acts of treason since the Year 1746, and providing your lordship procures my Remission upon delivering the said murderer, I hereby promise to discover a very grand plott on footing against the Government, which is more effectually carried on than any ever since the Family of Stewart was put off the Throne of Britain, and besides to do all the services that lays in my power to ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... deep one, all right," remarked Dick to Shirley. "He jollies me occasionally, just to show there's no hard feeling; then he jollies the governor; and when I saw our mother footing it on his arm this afternoon I almost fell in a faint. I wish you'd hold on to him tight till we're docked. My little friend from California is crazy about him—and I haven't dared tell her he's only a drummer; such a fling would be ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... apologies were soon made and cheerfully accepted. I believe I was unconventional enough to tell the exact truth concerning my occupation, and matters were soon on a friendly footing. Indeed I may say at once that the stately college don we have heard so much about never made his appearance during our ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... saw him in a carriage with Artemy Pavlovitch Gaganov, a man who was proud, irritable, and supercilious, in spite of his good breeding, and who was not easy to get on with. At the governor's, too, Pyotr Stepanovitch met with a warm welcome, so much so that he was at once on an intimate footing, like a young friend, treated, so to say, affectionately. He dined with Yulia Mihailovna almost every day. He had made her acquaintance in Switzerland, but there was certainly something curious about the rapidity of his success in the governor's house. In any case he was reputed, whether truly ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... of profound excitement! Would he regain his footing all that distance below? Balancing himself for a moment in the air after his jump, he regained his footing, and sped away down the hillside, stopping himself by a sharp turn of the ski as he was nearing the loudly applauding spectators. One after another they came, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... find me ready. Exit CARDINAL. O poor Antonio, though nothing be so needful To thy estate as pity, yet I find Nothing so dangerous! I must look to my footing: In such slippery ice-pavements men had need To be frost-nail'd well, they may break their necks else; The precedent 's here afore me. How this man Bears up in blood! seems fearless! Why, 'tis well; Security some men call the suburbs of hell, Only a dead wall between. Well, good Antonio, I 'll ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster

... subject? What would be the state of things, if he might communicate his wishes or opinions privately to members of one house, and make no such communication to the other? Would not the two houses be necessarily put in immediate collision? Would they stand on equal footing? Would they have equal information? What could ensue from such a manner of conducting the public business, but quarrel, confusion, and conflict? A member rises in the House of Representatives, and moves a very large appropriation of money for military purposes. If he says he does it upon ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... be organs of scent. The long hair-fine ones of katydids and crickets may be also, but repeatedly I have seen these used to explore the way ahead over leaves and limbs, the insect feeling its path and stepping where a touch assures it there is safe footing. Katydids, crickets, and grasshoppers all have antennae, and all of these have ears definitely located; hence their feelers are not for auricular purposes. According to my logic those of the moth cannot be either. I am quite sure that primarily they serve ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter

... Ardea; the latter derivation probably meaning that the race was Tyrrheno-Latin, because Ardea was the capital of that race. Rome was thus enlarged by a third element, which, however, did not stand on a footing of equality with the two others, but was in a state of dependence similar to that of Ireland relatively to Great Britain down to the year 1782. But although the Luceres were obliged to recognize the supremacy of the two older tribes, they were considered as an integral ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... made a footing in the wall, It was not therefrom to escape, For I had buried one and all, 320 Who loved me in a human shape; And the whole earth would henceforth be A wider prison unto me:[27] No child—no sire—no kin had I, No partner in my misery; I thought ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... they compromised. Max would see Sidney at his office. It would be better than having her run across the Street—would put things on the right footing. For, if he did have her admitted, she would have to learn at once that he was no longer "Dr. Max"; that, as a matter of fact, he was now staff, and entitled to much dignity, to speech without contradiction or argument, to clean towels, and a deferential ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... it vere 'im as saved me, for v'ot vith the vind, and the rain, and the dark, ve lost our footing and over ve vent into the River together—down and down till I thought as ve should never come up again, but ve did, o' course, and then, jest as 'ard as 'e'd struggled to throw 'imself in, 'e fought to get me out, so it vere 'im as really ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... than themselves. In proportion as they know themselves to be aggressors and spoliators their anxiety increases. Every abusive power in the world is thus driven to adopt schemes and devices—some dangerous and some merely ludicrous—to keep a footing at that silent bar of opinion before which all wrong must, sooner or later, quail and ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... three large furze bushes, and, sticking them on the end of a pitchfork, attempted to sweep down the chimney. For this purpose he mounted on the back of a chair, that he might be able to reach the top with more ease; but, in order that his footing might be firm, he made one of the servant-men sit upon the chair, to keep it steady during the operation. Unfortunately, however, it so happened that this man was needed to assist in removing a meal-chest ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... may think you will not be so great losers as the rich if these half-pence should pass, because you seldom see any silver, and your customers come to your shops or stalls with nothing but brass, which you likewise find hard to be got; but you may take my word, whenever this money gains footing among you, you will be utterly undone; if you carry these half-pence to a shop for tobacco or brandy, or any other thing you want, the shop-keeper will advance his goods accordingly, or else he must break and leave the key under the door. Do you think I will ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... fishers to this sea-washed point, This granite headland of Cape Ann? Where first they made their bed, Salt-blown and wet with brine, In cold and hunger, where the storm-wrenched pine Clung to the rock with desperate footing. They, With hearts courageous whom hope did anoint, Despite their tar and tan, Worn of the wind and spray, Seem more to me than man, With their unconquerable spirits.—Mountains may Succumb to men like these, to wills like theirs,— The Puritan's ...
— An Ode • Madison J. Cawein

... see, Dr. Prague, it won't do at all to admit her into society on the same footing with our Catherine? For my part I don't see how you could, for a moment, harbor ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... though the whole thing was to be accomplished by a rush, and her horse, true to the manner of horses, insisted on following in the direct track of the one who had led him so far. When he got to the bank he made his effort to jump high, but had got no footing for a fair spring. On he went, however, and struck Price's horse on the quarter so violently as to upset that animal, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... stole the sketch back to the portfolio, afraid doubtless it might be claimed in form, or else compensation expected by the artist. Lady Penelope was disconcerted, like an awkward horse when it changes the leading foot in galloping. She had to recede from the respectful and easy footing on which he had contrived to place himself, to one which might express patronage on her own part, and dependence on Tyrrel's; and this could not be done in ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... I say, that in the sincere endeavor to learn and practise, amid the bewildering confusion of our times, what is sound and true in poetical art, I seemed to myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solid footing, among the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted in art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening, and not hostile criticism. How often have I felt this when reading words of disparagement or of cavil: that it is the uncertainty as to what is really to be aimed ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... of the engineer; so far he finds a solid footing and clear views. But the province of formulas and constants is restricted. Even the mechanical engineer comes at last to an end of his figures, and must stand up, a practical man, face to face with the discrepancies of ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of Acre a chapter of the surviving Templars was gathered, and James de Molay, preceptor of England, was elected grand master. One more attempt was made to recover a footing in the Holy Land, but it was defeated with great loss to the order, and all hope of restoring the Latin kingdom in Palestine seems to have been abandoned. The occupation of the Templars was gone. They had been banded together to fight upon ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... graphic for the events of 478 and 479, suddenly fails us, and we have scarcely anything but dry and scanty annalistic notices for the next nine years of the life of Theodoric. He seems not to have maintained his footing in Epirus, but to have returned to the neighbourhood of the Danube, where he fought and conquered the king of the Bulgarians, a fresh horde of barbarians who at this time made their first appearance in "the Balkan peninsula" Whether the ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... books were published at 31s. 6d.; the dirty outside public was got rid of, and the villa paid its yearly subscription, and had nice large handsome books that none but the élite could obtain, and with them a sense of being put on a footing of equality with my Lady This and Lady That, and certainty that nothing would come into the hands of dear Kate and Mary and Maggie that they might not read, and all for two guineas a year. English fiction became pure, and the garlic and assafœtida with which Byron, Fielding ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... the only one in whom we can trace the stronger lineaments of that character which, when Johnson first came up to London, was common among authors. Of the rest, scarcely any had felt the pressure of severe poverty. Almost all had been early admitted into the most respectable society on an equal footing. They were men of quite a different species from the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... in Russia have practically disappeared. Many old-time Mensheviks have joined the Communist Party. Here and there in the country may be found a Social Revolutionary stronghold. Here and there in the Ukraine the Mensheviks retain a footing, but I doubt whether either of these parties has in it the vitality to make itself once again a serious political factor. There is, however, a movement which, in the long run, may alter Russia's political complexion. More and more delegates to Soviets ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... shall be most careful not to alarm them with hints that I mean more than I say. Here arc certain interesting English books; let us see what they are about, who wrote them, and why they are deemed excellent. That is our position. These men must get on a friendly footing with me. Little by little I shall talk with them more familiarly, try to understand each one. Success depends upon my personal influence. I may find that it is inadequate, yet I have hope. Naturally, I have points of contact with the working class ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... a great republican. One day when I was at her house, I put on a very grave countenance, and said to her, "Madam, I am now become a convert to your way of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are upon an equal footing; and to give you an unquestionable proof, Madam, that I am in earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow-citizen, your footman; I desire that he may be allowed to sit down and dine ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... cleared away by a good swimmer called Muller, a Dutchman, in order to get a clear sea to launch the ship's large boat, our party took the opportunity of feeding and watering the horses, and in the meantime the tide had fallen so much that Muller found footing. The boat was launched safely and, on being asked by Captain Kirby, I went ashore with Mr. Martin, the supercargo, and a part of the crew. We found we could wade on shore; and, on the previous evening having seen the masts of a ship on the other ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough

... less gifted by Fortune, indulging in innocent recreation; and for a while dispelling their cares, by dancing to the exhilarating music of an orchestra not ill composed. Here, the grisette banishes the ennui of six days' application to the labours of her industry, by footing it away on Sunday. Hither, in short, the less refined sons and daughters of mirth repair to see and be seen, and to partake of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... mentioned, he was recommended to the patronage not only of Mecaenas, but of Augustus, with whom he, as well as Virgil, lived on a footing of the greatest intimacy. Satisfied with the luxury which he enjoyed at the first tables in (174) Rome, he was so unambitious of any public employment, that when the emperor offered him the place of his secretary, he declined it. ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... was human, and almost inevitably a sort of reaction began in his mind the instant he was alone. He had lost one of his best friends, he knew as well as possible that they could never be on the same footing as before. He had, moreover, lost in him a valuable co-worker. Then, too, it was true enough that his defense of Raeburn was bringing him into great disfavor with the religious world, and he was a sensitive and naturally ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... Alabama to administer the amnesty oath, reported a general disposition among the planters of that region to "set the colored people who had cultivated their crops during the summer, adrift as soon as the crops would be secured, and not to permit the negro to remain upon any footing of equality with the white man in that country." (Accompanying document No. 28.) The disposition to drive away all the negroes from the plantations was undoubtedly confined to a few districts; and as far as the scheme of wholesale deportation is concerned, practical ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz

... Organized Society seemed to have received in his death a blow that called for the utmost avenging. Organized Society was plaintiff in the case, as well as police, jury, judge, and public. The single human creature who could not apparently gain footing within its fold was Norrie Ford himself. Organized Society had ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... among her other qualities: "Who are you," said she once, "that presume to school the nobles and sovereign of this realm?" "Madam, a subject born within the same," answered he. Reasonably answered! If the "subject" have truth to speak, it is not the "subject's" footing that will fail ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... to the rock and going up inch by inch, Jack at length reached a point whence it was easier climbing, and here he advanced more rapidly than before, Percival watching him closely, and standing ready to catch him in case he happened to lose his footing. ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh

... which ended in a loud laugh from without, and a cry from her husband of "Well, I swear! Why, you infamous old scoundrel, come in out of the wet!" There ensued, amidst Bartley's voluble greetings, a noise of shy shuffling about in the hall, as of a man not perfectly master of his footing under social pressure, a sound of husky, embarrassed whispering, a dispute about doffing an overcoat, and question as to the disposition of a hat, and then Bartley reappeared, driving before him the lank, long figure of a man who blinked in the flash of gaslight, as Bartley turned it all up in ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... were otherwise—if he treated me diplomatically—that is to say, like a man who wishes, by some means or other, to obtain a footing in the house, so that he may ultimately gain the power of dictating to its occupants—he would, if it had been but once, have honored me with the smile which you extol so loudly; but no, he saw that I was unhappy, he understood that I ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... increased demand for labour, but merely the transfer of a number of employes from private to the public service. The public control of departments of industry, which are now in private hands, would not, so long as it was conducted on a commercial footing in the public interest, furnish either direct, or indirect, relief to "the unemployed." A reduction of hours of labour in the case of workers transferred to the public service, might afford employment to an increased ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson

... little brown mule was having trouble now. He wavered, he picked his footing with great care when a declivity dipped before him; he stopped every few yards and rested when he was making a climb. As for Casey, he managed to hold himself on the narrow back of William, but that was all. He understood perfectly ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... With such attention, who could long be ill? Returning health proclaim'd the Doctor's skill. Presents and praises from a grateful heart Were freely offer'd on the patient's part; In high repute the Doctor seem'd to stand, But still had got no footing in the land; And, as he saw the seat was rich and fair, He felt disposed to fix his station there: To gain his purpose he perform'd the part Of a good actor, and prepared to start; Not like a traveller in a day serene, When the sun shone and when ...
— Tales • George Crabbe

... trapper knows every inch of his path as a priest does his breviary. True, as the surface snow was only two days old, many marks could not be expected upon it. All the same, it struck Malcolm as odd that not a single fox-footing had he sighted since leaving home. "Something must have been cleaning 'em up," he reasoned. "There were two broods on Whale Island and one at least on t' Isle of Hope. That's some twenty all told—and ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... better." Poor Lawrence felt very uncomfortable, not quite knowing how to place his instructions on a less familiar footing. ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM

... Independence? That measure will strengthen us; it will give us character abroad. The nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects, in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain that England her self will sooner treat for peace with us on the footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to acknowledge that her whole conduct towards us has been a course of injustice and oppression. Her pride will be less wounded, by submitting to that course of things which now predestinates our independence than by yielding the points ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... down on us with slack bowlines, while we should be jammed close on a wind, an advantage which, I believed, would give her the heels of us and enable her to lay us aboard. This, I felt, must be avoided at all costs; for if once her crew should gain a footing upon our decks their numbers were sufficient to overpower us instantly. I therefore determined to slip past her to windward and run the gauntlet of her fire; that risk, terrible as it was, being, to my mind, less than ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... into a slacker eddy. There were several other figures apparently clinging to the butt of it, and when he saw them slip off into the river one by one, he let go, too. He was swung out of the eddy into a white turmoil, which hurled him against froth-lapped stones, but at length he found sure footing, and crawled up the bank, which most of his companions had reached before him. When the others came up, he found that he was aching all over, and evidently was badly bruised. He stood still, shivering a little, and ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... 'remarkable accident,' 'horrid murder,' 'items' man, etc., etc., for seven years, at a salary of $750, $1000, $1250, and $1500. We had also been working hard, for poor pay, as an editor and politician, for the twelve years preceding 1830. We stood, therefore, on the same footing with Mr. Greeley when the partnership was formed. We knew that Mr. Greeley was much abler, more indomitably industrious, and, as we believed, a better man in all respects. We foresaw for him a brilliant future; and, if we had not started with utterly ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... whispered, fearing to startle him from perilous footing, "let me hold your portmanteau. Jump to the slant ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... in good humour, for he had just learnt that, owing to the wit and nerve of one man, the Bank of France had stood untouched. With it was saved the house of Turner & Co., of Paris and London. The moment my friend's affairs were on a safe footing he placed himself at my service to help with the Vicomtesse de Clericy's more complicated difficulties. I was glad to avail myself of the assistance of one whose name was a by-word for rectitude and ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... in alarm, for just here Marian struck her foot against a stubbly growth and came near falling, but recovered her footing. ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard

... the protocol of the Declaration of Paris in order to offer to both belligerents a partial adhesion, which must exclude the United States from a simple adhesion, to the Declaration of Paris, while it placed both belligerents on the same apparent footing. These steps were taken in haste before Adams could obtain an interview. When Adams by an effort unexpected to Russell obtained an interview at Pembroke Lodge at noon of Saturday, May 18, and according to Russell's report of ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... with a view to obtaining the best footing. Time for this will generally be too limited to permit more than a ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... man's estate, by his delighted parents. Dutch aristocracy had put forth all its graces to become the winter morn: and it was characteristic of the period that the artist tribe was there, on a grand footing,—in waiting, for the lights and shadows they liked best. The artists were, in truth, an important body just then, as a natural consequence of the nation's hard-won prosperity; helping it to a full consciousness of the genial yet delicate homeliness it ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... but just and wise. He was inflexible in carrying out the objects of the allies, but temperate and equitable in curbing the vindictive propensities of the allied chiefs and armies. He met the great continental sovereigns and generals in Paris on a footing highly honourable to himself and his nation; his influence preponderated in their counsels, and he received more marks of deference than any other man of the times ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... he asked for the appointment of a commission to study the need for adequate local administration and he urged its adoption before the General Assembly so forcefully that Ohio to-day has what is universally recognized to be the best system in America. In placing the state department upon a footing commensurate with other institutions of government, case was taken to place it where it cannot be prostituted to partisanship. There has been a growing number of governmental departments under Governor Cox in which partisanship is utterly forbidden. They include the Board of Administration, ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris

... on the same footing as dramatic representations of this character. They are creatures of the same sort of imagination as we see in the story-teller of Venice and Naples, who lays a hat on the ground and waits until an audience is assembled. Then he ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer

... on my knees to a really well-educated, good, American woman who would come into our family, and take that place; but I know it's perfectly vain and useless to expect it. You know we have tried the experiment two or three times of having a person in our family who should be on the footing of a friend, yet do the duties of a servant, and that we never could make it work well. These half-and-half people are so sensitive, so exacting in their demands, so hard to please, that we have come to the firm determination that we will have no sliding-scale in our family, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... time you must spend before you can lay hold upon them at all, that is with the personal relation which alone is of any real influence! Our Saviour himself had to be thirty years in the world before he had footing enough in it to justify him in beginning to teach publicly: he had been laying the needful foundations all the time. Not under any circumstances could I consent to make use of you before you had brought yourself into genuine relations with some ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... of a national foundry for cannon, to be common to the service of the Army and Navy of the United States, has been heretofore recommended, and appears to be required in order to place our ordnance on an equal footing with that of other countries and to enable that branch of the service to control the prices of those articles and graduate the supplies to the wants of the Government, as well as to regulate their quality and insure their uniformity. The same reasons induce me to recommend ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... and on all sides of me for signs of moose, walked for a full hour, seeing nothing living but the woodpeckers and the chickadees, hearing nothing but the rustle of the branches, as released of their loads they sprang back into place. Then, quite needlessly, I found insecure footing under the snow, and plunged suddenly at full length. My rifle whirled from my hand with force, and I heard it strike against the uncovered top of a sugar-loaf stone. I jumped up in fear and hastily examined it. The breech was shattered—my rifle was ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... old alike. Their hearty appreciation of the subjects written upon give them the charm of sincere feeling. The writer is in perfect sympathy with the authors she discusses. She gives enough of personal anecdote and gossip to put young people on the footing of familiar acquaintance with those whose works she would have them read. There are delicious bits of criticism made simply by telling what she has herself found to admire or enjoy in their books. One sees just how she has come to have her favorites. Older readers may learn from her ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... natives of the islands as well as Russians; but both, of them know it by the name of America. From what we could gather from Ismyloff and his countrymen, the Russians have made several attempts to get a footing upon that part of this continent that lies contiguous to Oonalashka and the adjoining islands, but have always been repulsed by the natives, whom they describe as a very treacherous people. They mentioned two or three captains, or chief men, who ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... sheep-track leading up the cliff. It starts where the under-cliff dies back again into the chalk face, and climbs by slants and elbow-turns up to the top. The shepherds call it the Zigzag, and even sheep lose their footing on it; and of men I never heard but one had climbed it, and that was lander Jordan, when the Excise was on his heels, half a century back. But he that tries it stakes all on head and foot, and a wounded bird like thee may not dare that ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... ride, As fortune led him, by a forest side: 210 Lonely the vale, and full of horror stood, Brown with the shade of a religious wood! When full before him, at the noon of night, (The moon was up, and shot a gleamy light) He saw a quire of ladies in a round That featly footing seem'd to skim the ground: Thus dancing hand in hand, so light they were, He knew not where they trod, on earth or air. At speed he drove, and came a sudden guest, In hope where many women were, at least 220 Some ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... are set aside, the use of limbs and air being both superseded by steam; in short, every thing is done by proxy—death not excepted, for we are told that our soldiers and sailors die for us. Marriage in certain ranks is on this footing. A prince marries by proxy, and sometimes lives for ever after as if he thought all the obligations of wedlock were to be performed in a similar manner. A nobleman, it is true, will here take the trouble to officiate in the first instance ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... her mobilization but half complete, mainly on a line for the defense of Brussels and Antwerp. It had been estimated by Brialmont that 75,000 men of all arms were necessary for the defense of Liege on a war footing, probably 35,000 was the total force hastily gathered in the emergency to withstand the German assault on the fortifications. It ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... pitch dark, so that Vogt was unable to distinguish his narrow path. But he stumbled bravely up and down by the buildings for his two hours. Even if he often missed his footing, it was better than standing still. For then one heard all kinds of strange noises, the cause of which could not be perceived in the baffling darkness. The forest was never quite silent; there were always cracklings and rustlings from its boughs and ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... hard-packed stretch of sand which offered firm footing and no rocks over which one of the fighters might stumble at a ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand

... struggling with her own feelings. She believed that just as soon as she and Kurt understood each other—faced each other without any dissimulation—then she would feel free and strong. If only she could put the situation on a sincere footing! She must work for that. Her difficulty was with a sense of falsity. There was no time to plan. ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... to on his part, and without any sufficient plea afforded him on mine, I from that moment considered him as the traitor and criminal described in the charge, and no concessions, no humiliations, could ever after induce me to settle on him the zemindary of Benares, or any other territory, upon any footing whatever." ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... itself. This arrangement caused the line to lead down to the part of the cliffs from which the young man had fallen, and where it was by no means difficult for a steady head and active limbs to move about and pluck flowers. It consequently remained for Wychecombe merely to regain a footing on that part of the hill-side, to ascend to the summit without difficulty. It is true he was now below the point from which he had fallen, but by swinging himself off laterally, or even by springing, aided by the line, it ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of fashion, which is evidently alluded to in the passages quoted, that plainly stands on a different and peculiar footing. It has a double power to enforce its decrees. The one is economical and commercial—the power of capital to control productions, and the advantages of producing largely after a few forms or patterns; the other ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... himself to the utmost of his power, and he got nine of the blind men safely across; but as he was helping the tenth, the man lost his footing, and in spite of the Khoja's efforts the river overpowered him, ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... silken gondola flags above the consular bookcase, where with their gilt lance-headed staves, and their vivid stars and stripes, they made a very pretty effect. He filliped a little dust from his coat, and begged Don Ippolito to be seated, with the air of putting even a Venetian priest on a footing of equality with other men under the folds of the national banner. Mr. Ferris had the prejudice of all Italian sympathizers against the priests; but for this he could hardly have found anything in Don Ippolito to alarm dislike. ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... Burman and Karen missions were well supplied with teachers; and Dr. Judson thought he should be more useful at Rangoon, where there had, since one attempt on the part of the Wades, been no resident missionary. He heard accounts of the Court which made him hope to recover a footing at Ava, and decided on again living at Rangoon; but he soon heard that there was less hope than ever at Ava. The king whom he had known was dead, and had been succeeded by a devoted Buddhist, whose brother and heir, "having ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge



Words linked to "Footing" :   toehold, ground, position, basis, foundation, support, status, terms, common ground, foothold



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com