FOOTFALL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does footfall mean? 

• FOOTFALL (noun)
  The noun FOOTFALL has 1 sense:

1. the sound of a step of someone walking

  Familiarity information: FOOTFALL used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FOOTFALL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The sound of a step of someone walking

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

footfall; footstep; step

Context example:

he heard footsteps on the porch

Hypernyms ("footfall" is a kind of...):

sound (the sudden occurrence of an audible event)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "footfall"):

tramp (a heavy footfall)

 Context examples 

His heavy footfall was beside me.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

From the hiding-place into which I had been so swiftly hustled I heard the footfalls upon the stair, with the opening and the closing of the bedroom door.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As he spoke, a heavy footfall was heard without, and the portly knight flung open the door and strode into the room.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The question was hardly out of my mouth, and Holmes had not yet opened his lips to reply, when we heard a heavy footfall in the passage and a tap at the door.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

London hummed solemnly all around; but nearer at hand, the stillness was only broken by the sounds of a footfall moving to and fro along the cabinet floor.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Soon we could hear their footfalls as they ran and the cracking of the branches as they breasted across a bit of thicket.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

There were footfalls outside, the door opened, and Inspector Morton appeared.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Our footfalls rang out crisply and loudly as we swung through the doctors’ quarter, Wimpole Street, Harley Street, and so through Wigmore Street into Oxford Street.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the course of his nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect with which the footfalls of a single person, while he is still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The Company had marched to the turn of the road ere Sir Nigel Loring rode out from the gateway, mounted on Pommers, his great black war-horse, whose ponderous footfall on the wooden drawbridge echoed loudly from the gloomy arch which spanned it.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)