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footwork

noun

Simple meaning

Any movement of the feet.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

fuutwerk

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈfʊtwɚk

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. Any movement of the feet, especially intricate or complex movement, as in sports or dancing.

  2. uncountablemusic

    A subgenre of juke/ghetto house and style of street dance that originated in Chicago in the early 1990s.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Any movement of the feet, especially intricate or complex movement, as in sports or dancing.

Used this way, footwork is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a sporting use: familiar to anyone who follows the game, and puzzling to anyone who does not.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Confusing or complicated
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Sports
  • News/reporting
  • Everyday conversation

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use footwork

  • “She needs some fancy footwork to cover all those lies.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

fancy footworkfast footworkgood footworkproper footworkpolitical footworkopposite footworksome footworkfootwork pattern

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.