Meanings
plural footgangers · alternative foot-ganger
- biologyA juvenile locust or grasshopper while in its wingless or flightless phase.
Midway between Bloomfontein and Kimberley, while riding with Major Beresford, of the South African Constabulary, at the foot of some low hills in the Karoo bush, I came across great numbers of the footgangers.
1902, Journal of the Society of Arts1 more example
We passed several swarms of locusts in the footganger stage; but owing to the lateness of their appearance the damage they effected was slight, though we met many people coming from the west, whose crops had been utterly destroyed.
1904, Mark Sykes, John Hugh Smith, Edward Granville Browne, Dar-ul-Islam: A Record of a Journey Through Ten of the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey
Origin
Perhaps from Dutch or Afrikaans voetganger (“pedestrian”, literally “foot-goer”), or a partial calque of German Fußgänger (“pedestrian”), equivalent to foot + ganger (“goer, walker, stepper”).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
footganger. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/footganger
“footganger.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/footganger. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “footganger,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/footganger.
Source: footganger on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.