[f. prec. + -SHIP.]
1. The action of, or skill in, running or walking. To lay on or make footmanship: to run quickly. Now rare or Obs.
1562. J. Shute, Cambine’s Turk. Wars, 18. Everye man by fotemanshyppe soughte to saue one, and to get into the citie throughe the same gate, that was opened to Giustiniano.
1565. Golding, Ovid’s Met., I. (1593), 17.
| Both twaine of them do straine themselves and lay on footemanship, | |
| Who may best runne with all his force the tother to outstrip. |
1580. Blundevil, Horsemanship (1609) 4 b. Their well reynyng, their loftye pace, their cleane trotting, theyr stronge galloppyng, and theyr swift running well considered (all whiche thynges they haue in maner by nature) they excel numbers of other races, euen so farre as the faire greyhoundes the foule mastiffe Curres.
a. 1603. T. Cartwright, Confut. Rhem. N. T. (1618), 9. So inflame him, as to cause him to speed himselfe as fast from the forsaken Wildernesse, to the place of the Assembly of Gods people, as the Hart pursued of the dogges, maketh foote manship to the soile.
1672. Petty, Pol. Anat., 328. The Footmanship for which the Irish 40 years agone were very famous, is now almost quite lost among them, every man now keeping a small Garran to ride on.
1769. De Foe’s Tour Gt. Brit., II. 414. The People in this County [Stafford] have been more particularly famous than another for good Footmanship; and there have been, and still are, among them some of the fleetest Runners in England.
1896. Boston (Mass.) Jrnl., 30 Jan., 10/6. The most important test is utterly ignored. This … Footmanship, not erudition, is the thing.
fig. 1614. J. Cooke, City Wit, in Dodsley, O. P., VII. 85. I’ll try the nimble footmanship of your tongue.
2. The occupation or office of a footman (sense 4).
1833. Fraser’s Mag., VIII. Nov., 632. Had Miller in person waited on old Coleridge, he would have answered his question in an essay, in which the fundamental principles of footmanship would have been laid down, according to the most recondite doctrines of Platonism, delivered in a flowing speech, terminable only at the announcement of dinner.
