[f. FOOT sb. or v. + -ER1.]
1. One who goes on foot, a pedestrian, rare.
1608. Topsell, Serpents (1658), 780. Although (being none of the best footers,) she could hardly keep way with the Spider.
1890. Baring-Gould, Old Co. Life, 327. The tor is covered with horses, traps, carriages, footers; and if the spring sun be shining, nothing can well be more picturesque.
b. One who walks in a place, a frequenter.
1890. Laurence Housman, The Green Gaffer, in Univ. Rev., VII. 15 July, 317. All the quiet unknowable ways of this shy footer of solitudes.
2. Falconry. Of the hawk: (see FOOT v. 6).
1879. [see FOOT v. 6].
1879. Radcliffe in Encycl. Brit. (ed. 9), IX. 10/2. Their style of flight is magnificent; they are considerably swifter than the peregrine, and are most deadly ‘footers.’
1881. E. B. Michell, Falconry in Miniature, in Macm. Mag., XLV. Nov., 40/1. He will become a better ‘footer’—more clever at seizing the quarry in his talons.
3. Football. a. A kick at a football. ? Obs. b. slang. The game itself.
1781. J. Hutton, Tour to Caves, etc. (ed. 2), 89. Footer, a stroke at a foot-ball.
Mod. colloq. Are you playing footer to-day?
4. Bowls. (See quot. 1876.)
1863. Feltham’s Guide to Archery, etc., 57. If a gentleman play a bowl without his foot being upon the footer, an opponent may stop it, and cause it to be played again.
1876. Wilkinson, in Encycl. Brit., IV. 180/2. The ‘footer’ is the small piece of material—cocoa-nut matting is the best—whereon each player stands in delivering his ball.
5. With a numeral prefixed: A person or thing whose height or length is of that number of feet; as six-footer, twenty-one-footer, etc.
1844. J. T. Hewlett, Parsons & W., xxxiii. I knocked at the door, and inquired of a second six-footer, in splendid plushes, &c.
1891. Daily News, 21 July, 3/6. The club also sailed a match for 21-footers on Tuesday.
