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footnote

noun

  1. note at the foot of a page
L228240 on Wikidata ↗

verb

No English definition recorded for this entry.

L331745 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈfʊtˌnəʊt/ / /ˈfʊtˌnoʊt/

noun

Etymology: From foot + note.

  1. A short piece of text, often numbered, placed at the bottom of a printed page, that adds a comment, citation, reference etc, to a designated part of the main text.

    consult the footnotes for more details

    Above all, the 48-page timetables of the new service, which have been distributed free at every station in the scheme, are a model to the rest of B.R. For the first time on British Railways, so far as we are aware, a substantial timetable has been produced, not only without a single footnote but also devoid of all wearisome asterisks, stars, letter suffixes and other hieroglyphics.

  2. An event of lesser importance than some larger event to which it is related.

    a mere footnote in history

    If we are another footnote to Plato, Plato was himself already a footnote to still earlier footnotes, in an endless chain of footnotes to footnotes

  3. A qualification to the import of something.

verb

Etymology: From foot + note.

  1. To add footnotes to a text.

    She does everything she does with a kind of terrifying thoroughness, footnoted and bibliographied, as it were, down to the smallest detail.