hotfoot

From Middle English hot-fot, hot fot, equivalent to hot +‎ foot.

hotfoot (plural hotfoots)

1. (US) The prank of secretly inserting a match between the sole and upper of a victim's shoe and then lighting it.

hotfoot

1. (Britain) hastily; without delay.

hotfoot (third-person singular simple present hotfoots, present participle hotfooting, simple past and past participle hotfooted)

1. (transitive) To run (a distance).
   • 2007, R.C. Harvey, Meanwhile...

     He hotfooted the four-and-a-half blocks across town to the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and checked out the books Patterson had mentioned—and everything else about China he could quickly think of.

   • 2010, Eric Hammel, Coral and Blood: The U.S. Marine Corps’ Pacific Campaign (page 55)

     The Ford was shot up heavily, so Larkin hotfooted the last mile to Ewa. Once there, he took cover beneath a truck as unchallenged Zeros strafed the neatly parked MAG-21 aircraft and the base facilities.

• hotfoot it
• hotfoot spell

• foothot