In these texts, “foot” serves a remarkably versatile function, denoting everything from literal measurement to physical injury or emotive gesture. Vitruvius Pollio employs it as an established unit of architectural length, specifying a foot and a half long by one foot wide [1], while Mark Twain situates it firmly in the realm of ordinary hazards when Tom Sawyer and his rival dig in their heels “with a foot placed at an angle as a brace” [2]. Dickens paints vivid images of characters from head to foot in dust [3], and Hardy dramatizes an injured heroine limping painfully on a twisted foot [4]. Sometimes the word conveys subjugation—people are trodden underfoot [5, 6]—or simply registers frustration, as in a character stamping her foot [7]. Whether used concretely or figuratively, “foot” in literature leaves a meaningful imprint that crosses genres and centuries.