sb. (a.) [Cf. OE. hwítfót adj.]
1. Farriery. A white marking on a horse’s foot (see quot.); also, a horse with such a mark.
1753. Chambers’ Cycl. Supp., White-Foot … called in French Balzane, is a white mark that happens in the feet of a great many horses, both before and behind, from the fetlock to the coffin.
2. Collectors’ name for a species of moth.
1832. Rennie, Butterfl. & M., 161. The Whitefoot (S[pilonota) fænella...). Wings … dusky brown,… with a large medial hook-shaped white band.
3. Hist. A member of a secret society in Ireland who committed murders and outrages about 1832. Pl. whitefeet (also irreg. used attrib.).
1832. in G. C. Lewis, Local Disturb. Irel. (1836), 107. I find that the Whiteboy system has for the last sixty years continued under different names; as, Peep-o’-day-boys,… Ribbon-men, the Lady Clares, the Terry Alts…. Now we have the Whitefeet and Blackfeet.
1832. Boston Herald, 6 March, 2. An armed party of Whitefeet paid the third visit to the house of the long threatened Jeremiah Farrell. Ibid. (1833), 12 March, 3/6. James Jackman, a Whitefoot, for attacking the house of one Roche, and killing him, is to be hanged on Monday.
1886. Irish Eccles. Gaz., 4 Sept. The massacre of whitefeet men in the last days of that unfortunate secret society in the Queen’s County.
B. adj. White-footed. poet.
1867. Morris, Jason, II. 359. White-foot Ino smiling, sat alone.
So White-footed a., having white feet; Whitefootism, the practices of Irish whitefeet.
14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 602/32. Petulus,… whyt foted et dicitur de equo.
1753. Chambers’ Cycl. Supp., s.v. Chausse trop-haut, A white-footed horse.
1757. in Eliz. Carter’s Lett., 29 July (1809), II. 251. One of the prettiest little white-footed black cats … you ever saw.
1781. Pennant, Hist. Quadrup., 91. The white-footed Antelope or Nil-ghau.
1821. Scott, Kenilw., x. His white-footed nag.
1832. in G. C. Lewis, Local Disturb. Irel. (1836), 77. If they continue suffering under hardships,… Whitefootism will revive again.
