MAKING FEET FOR CHILDREN’S STOCKINGS, verb. phr. (old).—Begetting or breeding children.
OFFICER OF FEET, subs. phr. (old military).—An officer of infantry.—GROSE [1785].
HOW’S YOUR POOR FEET? phr. (common).—A street catch-phrase in the early part of the 1860s. [For suggested derivation cf., quot., 1890.]—See STREET CRIES.
1863. All the Year Round, p. 180, col. 1. ‘HOW’S YOUR POOR FEET?’ a year ago cheated half the natives of Cockaigne into the belief that they were gifted with a special genius for repartee.
1890. Town and Country (Sydney), 11 Jan., p. 19, col. 4. Henry Irving’s revival of ‘The Dead Heart’ has revived a bit of slang…. When the play was brought out originally, where one of the characters says, ‘My heart is dead, dead, dead!’ a voice from the gallery nearly broke up the drama with ‘HOW ARE YOUR POOR FEET?’ The phrase lived.
TO LIE FEET UPPERMOST, verb. phr. (venery).—To ‘take’ a man.
