a. Also 6 splaie-. β. 6–7 spla-, 7 splea-. [f. as prec.] Having splay feet.
α. 1545. Elyot, Planci, they whiche be splay footed.
1577. Hellowes, Gueuara’s Chron., 403. He was splay footed, and also poare blind.
1594. Nashe, Terrors of Night, To Rdr. Martin Momus, and splaie footed Zoylus,… are now reuiu’d again.
1652. Gaule, Magastrom., 186. The long-footed are fraudulent; and short-footed, sudden; and splay-footed, silly.
1695. Lond. Gaz., No. 3057/4. A splay footed and down look’d man.
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb. (1861), 186. A gigantic Swede, who, had he not been … splay-footed, might have served for the model of a Samson.
1892. J. Lumsden, Sheep-head & Trotters, 233. This long-limbed and somewhat splay-footed genius.
β. 1593. Passionate Morrice (1876), 82. Other [suitors], which were well legde, shaled with their feete, or were splafooted.
1608. Machin, Dumb Knt., IV. Sure I met no splea-footed baker, No hare did crosse me.
1647. Lilly, Chr. Astrol., clxxxv. 788. All Clowns, crump-shouldered or splea-footed.
1688. Lond. Gaz., No. 2392/4. A bandy-leged splafooted … Man.
b. fig. Clumsy, awkward; sprawling.
1716. M. Davies, Athen. Brit., II. 139. The rest moulded upon Lucretius’s Splay-footed numbers.
1756. Francis, trans. Horace, Epist. (ed. 7), II. i. 183. Nor wish [I] to stand expos’d to public Shame,… Nor in splay-footed Rhimes to show my Face.
1765. Falconer, Demagogue, 380. Splay-footed words, that hector, bounce, and swagger.
