Wrong-foot

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To cause a competitor to move or put weight on the wrong foot, as by making an unexpected move.

    "Johnson hesitated with his back to goal and was dispossessed by Mulumbu, who instantly played Odemwingie through on goal. The Nigerian kept his composure to wrong-foot Reina."

  2. 2
    To cause a competitor to move or put weight on the wrong foot, as by making an unexpected move.; To play the ball in an unexpected direction, forcing (the opponent) to change direction suddenly. transitive
  3. 3
    To catch (someone) off balance, off guard; to surprise. broadly, transitive

    "The Swedish academy had defied bookies’ predictions and wrongfooted critics too many times in the past, and if there was one consensus in the run-up, it was that the prize would not go to Europe, where six of the last ten winners had come from."

  4. 4
    To place (someone) at a tactical disadvantage. broadly, transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
bowl a googly

Example

More examples

"Johnson hesitated with his back to goal and was dispossessed by Mulumbu, who instantly played Odemwingie through on goal. The Nigerian kept his composure to wrong-foot Reina."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.