[f. FORE- pref. + FOOT.]
The stress is variable, the prefix being often felt as an adj.
1. One of the front feet of a quadruped.
1481. Caxton, Reynard (Arb.), 18. He had loste his eeris and the skynne wyth the clawes of his forefeet.
1525. Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. 312 a. He that kept the grayhounde dyde lette hym lose, and he wolde streight rynne to the kynge and fawne vpon hym, and leape with his fore fete vpon the kynges shulders.
1604. Breton, Pass. Sheph., Past. iii. 26.
| To see … the little black-haird Cony | |
| On a bank or sunny place, | |
| With her fore-feete wash her face. |
1697. Lond. Gaz., 3330/4. Throws his fore Foot out like a Turky Horse.
1770. G. White, Selborne, xxviii. 79. From the fore feet to the belly behind the shoulder it [the female moose] measured three feet and eight inches.
1834. H. M’Murtrie, Cuvier’s The Animal Kingdom, 60. The long claws of their [Badgers’] fore-feet enable them to dig with great effect.
1869. Dunkin, Midn. Sky, 16. A close pair of stars a little west of the zenith are Iota and Kappa Ursæ Majoris in the Great Bear’s right fore-foot.
† b. jocularly. The hand.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., II. i. 71. Giue me thy fist, thy fore-foote to me giue: They spirites are most tall.
2. Naut. ‘The foremost piece of the keel, or a timber which terminates the keel at the forward extremity, and forms a rest for the stem’s lower end’ (Adm. Smyth).
[1644. Manwayring, Sea-mans Dict., s.v. There is no such place of a ship which is termed her fore-foote; but … when two ships saile, so that one doth lie with her stem so much a-weather the other, that keeping their courses, that ship which doth so lie, will goe-out a head with the other, then we say, that she doth lie with the fore-foote of the other, as she stands or comes with her fore-foote … so that this word fore-foote, implies no more, but one ships lying, or sayling a-crosse an other ships way.]
1770. Chron., in Ann Reg., 153/1. She hung upon this rock by the fore-feet, her stern being amazingly depressed, about three hours; she then slipt off, overset, and sunk in eight fathom water.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xviii. 51. Turning our heads, we saw a great, rough, hump-backed whale, slowly crossing our fore foot, within three or four yards of the boat’s stem.
