footwork
/ˈfʊt.wɜːk/noun
footwork is spelled F-O-O-T-W-O-R-K: 8 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 24,745th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, footwork means “Any movement of the feet, especially intricate or complex movement, as in sports or dancing” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of footwork is footworks.
How many letters and syllables are in footwork?
| Letters | 8: F-O-O-T-W-O-R-K |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.3 times per million words; the 24,745th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is footwork?
Footwork appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 24,745th 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).
How do you pronounce footwork?
- US /ˈfʊt.wɜːk/
Footwork 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). Recordings: En-us-footwork.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of footwork
- footworks plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does footwork mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Any movement of the feet, especially intricate or complex movement, as in sports or dancing.
The dancer impressed the crowd with his fancy footwork.
- 2
A subgenre of juke/ghetto house and style of street dance that originated in Chicago in the early 1990s.
- 3
informalFinesse.
It took some fancy footwork to make it all happen.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Footwork in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense any intricate or complex movement of the feet, especially as in sport or dancing:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Spanish | trabajo podal, juego de pies |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does footwork come from?
From foot + work.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).