flat-footed
/flatˈfʊtɪd
/adjective
1Having a condition in which the foot has an arch that is lower than usual: a flat-footed, overweight colonel...
- It feels as if all the ligaments in my body are going to snap at any moment and my feet are so flat-footed it's like walking on glass.
- But while the defender stood flat-footed, the striker followed the flight of the ball, attempted to take it under control and, in fluffing his first touch, shinned it into the net.
- There is no trace left in the whole of London of the old, flat-footed waiters whose eyes were all over the place and who did their job so brilliantly that a pleasant symbiosis developed between them and the guests.
1.1 informal Unprepared: many local companies were caught flat-footed by international competition...
- And, granted, I think that many of the wounds are self-inflicted - the mergers, the strange flat-footed reaction to the internet.
- Namibia's opposition parties appear to be caught flat-footed when issues of national importance come up in Parliament.
- But when it comes to turning programming virtuosity into globally dominant products, companies like Sinjisoft are the ones being caught flat-footed.
1.2 informal Inelegant, awkward, or uninspired: a flat-footed prose style...
- Unfortunately, the tone mandated by the flat-footed New Yorker style drains his story of any emotional connection to events unfolding in the narrative.
- And the uninspired direction from Shawn Levy feels particularly flat-footed.
Derivatives
flat-footedly
- Suddenly, as we shuffled flat-footedly around the candle, the spell was broken by a woman who barged in with a bawling infant on her hip.
- The question to ask is not, flat-footedly, which conception of justification gets the nature of justification right, but what we gain by thinking of justification in one way rather than another.
flat-footedness
- But long straight stretches still felt like flying, and taking off the skates still brought that old sensation of disappointment and flat-footedness.
- But the more complex sense she leaves probably derives less from her strength or arrogance than from her flat-footedness - her interpersonal naïveté or incompetence.
- Interestingly, while a sign of atavism, flat-footedness was also considered a result of ‘modern’, urban living and its unhealthy and disabling influences.