1.
[syn: footprint, footmark, step]
2. a trace suggesting that something was once present or felt or otherwise important;
- Example: "the footprints of an earlier civilization"
3. the area taken up by some object;
- Example: "the computer had a desktop footprint of 10 by 16 inches"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Footprint \Foot"print`\, n.
The impression of the foot; a trace or footmark; as,
"Footprints of the Creator."
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
footprint
n 1: a mark of a foot or shoe on a surface; "the police made
casts of the footprints in the soft earth outside the
window" [syn: footprint, footmark, step]
2: a trace suggesting that something was once present or felt or
otherwise important; "the footprints of an earlier
civilization"
3: the area taken up by some object; "the computer had a desktop
footprint of 10 by 16 inches"
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
45 Moby Thesaurus words for "footprint":
boss, bump, colophon, concavity, convexity, dactylogram,
dactylograph, dent, dint, embossment, excrescence, fingerprint,
footmark, footstep, fossil footprint, ichnite, ichnolite, impress,
impression, imprint, indent, indentation, indention, lump, pad,
paw print, pawmark, pimple, print, pug, pugmark, seal, sigil, sign,
signet, spoor, stamp, step, stud, thumbmark, thumbprint, trace,
track, tract, vestige
The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):
footprint
n.
1. The floor or desk area taken up by a piece of hardware.
2. [IBM] The audit trail (if any) left by a crashed program (often in
plural, footprints). See also toeprint.
3. RAM footprint: The minimum amount of RAM which an OS or other program
takes; this figure gives one an idea of how much will be left for other
applications. How actively this RAM is used is another matter entirely.
Recent tendencies to featuritis and software bloat can expand the RAM
footprint of an OS to the point of making it nearly unusable in practice.
[This problem is, thankfully, limited to operating systems so stupid that
they don't do virtual memory -- ESR]
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):
footprint
1. The floor or desk area taken up by a
piece of hardware.
2. The amount of disk or RAM taken up by
a program or file.
3. (IBM) The audit trail left by a crashed program (often
"footprints").
See also toeprint.
[Jargon File]
(1995-04-25)