Dictionary

step foot en · VERB

Etymology

Apparently a blending of step with set foot.

Meanings

1. (nonstandard, proscribed) Eggcorn of set foot.
   • It was a week after the funeral before Lida stepped foot in the house again. 2003, Richard Dry, Leaving, page 114:
   • "Well," the person responded, pointing to each building in turn: "This one I usually go to, this one I sometimes go to, and this one I would never step foot in." 2003, Deborah P. Britzman, After-education: Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, and psychoanalytic histories of learning, page 134:
   • Imagine stepping foot on a dance floor after studying and practicing the steps for a waltz and the band strikes up the music for a rumba 2005, Jay Emerson Johnson, Dancing With God: Anglican Christianity And The Practice Of Hope, page 49:
   • All the dukes and princes that ever stepped foot in America, never deserved a tenth part of the attention which is due to Prof. Agassiz. 1872, Sir Norman Lockyer, Nature: international journal of science, volume 6, page 509:
   • This was a pleasure of no small kind; and in stepping foot again upon the soil of that country, which contains much that I prize, and more that I admire 1813, Washington Irving, “Sketches of an Excursion from Edinburgh to Dublin”, in The Analectic magazine, page 480:
   • Charles is arrested at the airport the moment he steps foot on British soil. 2008, Steven Sanders with Aeon J. Skoble, The philosophy of TV noir, page 79:
   • She never stepped foot on the mainland again long as she lived. 1896, Sarah Orne Jewett, The country of the pointed firs, page 105:

Forms