Meaning

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..

Definitions by Sense

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.
2. (by extension) An event of lesser importance than some larger event to which it is related.
3. A qualification to the import of something.
4. To add footnotes to a text.

Example Sentences

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.

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

In that context Scotland's fate is a modest element, a symptom of wider fragmentation of the current global order, a footnote to the fall of empire and the Berlin Wall, important to us and punchdrunk neighbours like France and Italy, a mere curiosity to emerging titans like Brazil.

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

Word Forms

• footnotes
• f.n.
• footnoting
• footnoted

Synonyms for foot note

Related Words

When Should You Use Foot note?

Use foot note when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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