Talk:Footman

The Encyclopaedia Britannica

Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Sooo I looked through the EB to find the source listed under sources, since it says "article name needed". There's an article "footman", but it is solely about the furniture. There is no article "footboy". What entry was sourced for this article? --Anonyma (talk) 21:12, 31 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Latest comment: 10 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

This article seems to confuse the fact that the word footman is an old term for an infantryman with an etymological link. OED does not show this [1] but rather they both derive from the simple co-incidence that they both refer to a man on foot, rather than on a horse. I would therefore recommend that this article be taken out of MILHIST. Monstrelet (talk) 08:53, 13 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

In the absence of a contrary view, I've removed the MILHIST template and noted on the MILHIST assessment talk page. Please refer there if you wish to discuss further.Monstrelet (talk) 19:22, 27 March 2010 (UTC)Reply
Currently, the word history section explicitly states that the role has a military origin. If that section is correct then more information should be added about the connection between footmen as soldiers, running footmen and footmen as domestic staff servants. If the section is inaccurate then the inaccurate information should be corrected. As long as the article includes claims about military history, I think it should be within the scope of the military history project. I've re-added the project banner and added {{disputed}} and {{fact}} tags to the article to draw more attention to the issue. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 09:15, 31 May 2010 (UTC)Reply
I'd be interested to see if anyone can come up with such an etymology. While the term was used first for a footsoldier, there seems to be no link, according to the OED or even the etymology link at the bottom of the article. In the interim, I've given it a MILHIST rating to keep the assessment book-keeping in order.Monstrelet (talk) 17:59, 31 May 2010 (UTC)Reply
No evidence has been produced to link the military and civilian uses of the word. If there is no objection I will remove the retired officer and loyal batman suggestion.Buistr (talk) 19:36, 26 November 2012 (UTC)Reply


The article also states that the synonymous term "lackey" has a similar entomology. I don't see how two completely different words can have the same etymology. According to the article on "lackey", this term probably derives from words meaning "messenger", while "footman" obviously refers to someone who serves on foot. Wschart (talk) 13:20, 31 March 2016 (UTC)Reply

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