Footfall

Pronunciation

• Received Pronunciation: /ˈfÊŠtËŒfɔːl/
• General American: /ˈfÊŠtËŒfÉ‘l/

Alternative forms

• foot-fall

Origin

foot + fall

Full definition of footfall

Noun

1. (countable) The sound made by a footstep.
• 1611, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, act 2, sc. 2,. . . like hedgehogs whichLie tumbling in my barefoot way and mountTheir pricks at my footfall.
• 1916, Rabindranath Tagore, "The Hungry Stones," in The Hungry Stones And Other Stories,I heard many footfalls, as if a large number of persons were rushing down the steps.
• 1936, w:T. S. Eliot, w, What might have been and what has been
  Point to one end, which is always present.
  Footfalls echo in the memory
  Down the passage which we did not take
  Towards the door we never opened
  Into the rose-garden.
2. (chiefly British, uncountable) Foot (pedestrian) traffic.
• 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Silverado Squatters, ch. 1,This stir of change and these perpetual echoes of the moving footfall, haunt the land. Men move eternally, still chasing Fortune.
• 2008, "Bargains galore in battle of the high street," The Scotsman, 9 Dec. (retrieved 11 Dec. 2008),With high-street stores desperate to increase footfall and buck the financial downturn, retailers have started issuing discount vouchers.