foot vs root

foot

noun
  • The base or bottom of anything. 

  • The part of a flat surface on which the feet customarily rest. 

  • The basic measure of rhythm in a poem. 

  • Travel by walking. 

  • The end of a rectangular table opposite the head. 

  • In a bryophyte, that portion of a sporophyte which remains embedded within and attached to the parent gametophyte plant. 

  • The part of a sewing machine which presses downward on the fabric, and may also serve to move it forward. 

  • The bottom edge of a sail. 

  • A unit of measure equal to twelve inches or one third of a yard, equal to exactly 30.48 centimetres. 

  • The base of a piece of type, forming the sides of the groove. 

  • A short foot-like projection on the bottom of an object to support it. 

  • A biological structure found in many animals that is used for locomotion and that is frequently a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg. 

  • A unit of measure for organ pipes equal to the wavelength of two octaves above middle C, approximately 328 mm. 

  • The bottommost part of a typed or printed page. 

  • Specifically, a human foot, which is found below the ankle and is used for standing and walking. 

  • The parsing of syllables into prosodic constituents, which are used to determine the placement of stress in languages along with the notions of constituent heads. 

  • The globular lower domain of a protein. 

  • The muscular part of a bivalve mollusc or a gastropod by which it moves or holds its position on a surface. 

  • Fundamental principle; basis; plan. 

  • The point of intersection of one line with another that is perpendicular to it. 

  • Foot soldiers; infantry. 

  • Recognized condition; rank; footing. 

  • The end of a cigar which is lit, and usually cut before lighting. 

  • The end of a billiard or pool table behind the foot point where the balls are racked. 

verb
  • To sum up, as the numbers in a column; sometimes with up. 

  • To tread to measure of music; to dance; to trip; to skip. 

  • To walk. 

  • To renew the foot of (a stocking, etc.). 

  • To use the foot to kick (usually a ball). 

  • To pay (a bill). 

root

noun
  • The lowest place, position, or part. 

  • The single node of a tree that has no parent. 

  • A sexual partner. 

  • The highest directory of a directory structure which may contain both files and subdirectories. 

  • A square root (understood if no power is specified; in which case, "the root of" is often abbreviated to "root"). 

  • A zero (of an equation). 

  • The primary source; origin. 

  • The primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Inflectional stems often derive from roots. 

  • Of a number or expression, a number which, when raised to a specified power, yields the specified number or expression. 

  • A root vegetable. 

  • The part of a hair near the skin that has not been dyed, permed, or otherwise treated. 

  • The part of a tooth extending into the bone holding the tooth in place. 

  • The bottom of the thread of a threaded object. 

  • A word from which another word or words are derived. 

  • The part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors and supports the plant body, absorbs and stores water and nutrients, and in some plants is able to perform vegetative reproduction. 

  • The fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed. 

  • An act of sexual intercourse. 

  • The section of a wing immediately adjacent to the fuselage. 

  • The part of a hair under the skin that holds the hair in place. 

  • In UNIX terminology, the first user account with complete access to the operating system and its configuration, found at the root of the directory structure; the person who manages accounts on a UNIX system. 

  • A penis, especially the base of a penis. 

verb
  • To be firmly fixed; to be established. 

  • To prepare, oversee, or otherwise cause the rooting of cuttings. 

  • To grow roots; to enter the earth, as roots; to take root and begin to grow. 

  • To sexually penetrate. 

  • To get root or privileged access on a computer system or mobile phone, often through bypassing some security mechanism. 

  • To seek favour or advancement by low arts or grovelling servility; to fawn. 

  • To turn up or dig with the snout. 

  • Of a baby: to turn the head and open the mouth in search of food. 

  • To rummage; to search as if by digging in soil. 

  • To root out; to abolish. 

  • To cheer (on); to show support (for) and hope for the success of. (See root for.) 

How often have the words foot and root occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )