Other forms: footings
A footing is the widened base of a wall, spreading its weight. Concrete footings, dig the footings, pour the footing.
It spreads the load over enough ground that the building does not sink, and how deep it must go depends on the soil and the frost line. Getting footings wrong is expensive and permanent. The word also means a basis or standing: on an equal footing, on a war footing, lose your footing. Note that all these senses come from the plain sense of where the foot rests.
1nounfootingThe widened base of a wall, spreading its weight.
“The builders dug a deep trench and poured concrete for the footings of the wall.”
2nounbasisA basis or standing.
“The two companies agreed to work together on an equal footing.”
footing is a base or standing.
Middle English fotyng is foot plus -ing. Every sense — the wall base, losing your footing, an equal footing — comes from the same idea of where a foot stands.
Middle English
fotyng
English, today
footing
From Middle English fotyng; equivalent to foot + ing.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA