footwall
noun
footwall is a noun meaning “The section of rock that extends below a diagonal fault line (the corresponding upper section being the hanging wall)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-O-T-W-A-L-L and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 51 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of footwall is footwalls.
What does footwall mean?
noun
- 1
The section of rock that extends below a diagonal fault line (the corresponding upper section being the hanging wall).
- 2
The under wall of an enclosed vein.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce footwall?
Footwall has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of footwall
- footwalls plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is footwall?
Footwall appears about once in every 51 million words in written English, the 222,788th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does footwall come from?
From foot + wall.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).