[f. FOOT sb. + WAY.]
1. A way or path for foot-passengers only.
1526. [See FOOT-PATH 1].
1532–3. Act 24 Hen. VIII., c. 5. Any common high way, cartway, horseway, or foteway.
1712. Hearne, Collect. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), III. 474. In the Foot Way from South Hinksey to Foxcomb are Military Fortifications, and those very considerable ones.
1776. G. Semple, A Treatise on Building in Water, 17. Each of the Foot-ways is 7 Feet 7 Inches, and raised about a Foot above the Carriage-way.
1879. C. Geikie, Christ, li. 600. To save distance, however, a footway ran from Gethsemane over the top of Olivet, and this, travellers a-foot, like Jesus, for the most part preferred to the other easier but more circuitous road.
2. Mining. (See quots.)
1778. W. Pryce, Min. Cornub., 321/2. Footway…. In deep Mines, they have old Shafts with ladders in them, and landing places at the foot of each ladder called a Saller, by means of which they descend into the Mines; whence this is stiled the Footway; and those Shafts, when applicable to no other use, Footway Shafts.
1869. R. B. Smyth, Gold Fields of Victoria, 611.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., Foot-way. The series of ladders and sollars by which men enter or leave a mine.
