devil's footstep
An evocative piece of American regional slang for a patch of land where nothing grows — a barren, inexplicably dead spot in an otherwise fertile field or yard.
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An evocative piece of American regional slang for a patch of land where nothing grows — a barren, inexplicably dead spot in an otherwise fertile field or yard. The superstitious name implies the ground was cursed or blighted by the devil's passing. Farmers and rural communities used the term for those mysterious bare circles or strips that resisted cultivation, attributing them to supernatural rather than natural causes.
There's a devil's footstep in the middle of the back field that my grandfather could never get anything to grow in, no matter what he tried.
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(US, slang) A barren spot of land.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
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Semantically related
- dew-beater60%
An old-fashioned slang term with two related meanings: a person's foot (especially one that trudges through wet morning grass) or a crude waterproofed shoe designed to keep feet dry in damp conditions. Both senses evoke the same image — someone stomping through dewy fields at dawn. The term is largely historical now but pops up in period literature and dialect dictionaries as a charming bit of rural English wordplay.
- go to the devil57%
(slang, figuratively, derogatory) To go to a bad or unpleasant place or situation; used in expressions of contempt or angry dismissal.
- dew-beater57%
A person's foot.
- devil strip57%
(Akron,, _, Ohio, US) The grassy area between the sidewalk and the street.