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say it: FUUT-hohld
foothold is a noun meaning "an area in hostile territory that has been captured and is held awaiting further troops and supplies". It is pronounced /ˈfʊtˌhoʊld/ — FUUT-hohld. It carries 3 recorded senses.
an area in hostile territory that has been captured and is held awaiting further troops and supplies
“an attempt to secure a bridgehead behind enemy lines”
“the only foothold left for British troops in Europe was Gibraltar”
a place providing support for the foot in standing or climbing
an initial accomplishment that opens the way for further developments
“the town became a beachhead in the campaign to ban smoking outdoors”
“they are presently attempting to gain a foothold in the Russian market”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for foothold come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.