Dictionary

barefooter en · NOUN

Etymology

From barefoot + -er.

Meanings

1. One who takes part in water skiing without wearing water skis.
   • A barefooter can perform such tricks as one-foot barefoot, tumble turns, crossing wakes, and toehold barefoot. Wake crossing is achieved in much the same fashion as it is on two skis. 1974, Kenneth Stephens, Waterskiing, page 91:
   • In 1950, a waterskiing competition in Florida included a barefoot waterskiing event. The barefooter who could barefoot water-ski for the longest time won this event. Barefooters began performing tricks such as tumbleturns and skiing backward in the early 1960s. 2000, Walter G. Oleksy, Barefoot waterskiing, page 14:
2. A person who chooses not to wear shoes or socks.
   • Within three weeks of beginning her paper route, Wise had become a 24/7 barefooter, and she no longer had pain in her knees. […] Wise became a barefooting activist after she was told by a manager at Market of Choice that she couldn’t be in the store without shoes. 2016 June 16, Paul Neevel, “Happening People”, in Eugene Weekly, page 11:
   • Julia Hill is a barefooter extraordinaire. She spent two years living in a California redwood in a crusade to protect the state’s last remaining oldgrowth redwood forest[…] She always climbed the tree, which she named Luna, barefoot, even in the dead of winter, saying that she “had to have the connection.” 2006 May 12, “Feel the Earth with bare feet”, in Beijing Today, page 20:
   • A Calgarian barefooter by the name of Jay Winkler doesn’t even let Canadian winters slow him down. He says he particularly loves bare-hoofing along a high mountain trail around Emerald Lake, B.C. 1999 May 25, “The right to bare feet”, in Minden Times, page 7:

Forms

Relateds

barefooting