The instep is the arched upper part of the foot. A high instep, the instep of the shoe, kick with the instep.
A high one makes shoes hard to fit, since the problem is the depth of the foot rather than its length or width. In football, striking with the instep is the technique for a hard shot: the laces rather than the toe.
1nouninstepThe arched upper part of the foot.
“The strap of my new sandals rubbed painfully against my instep.”
instep is a body part.
In plus step. The word is recorded from the fifteenth century for the top of the foot.
Middle English
steppen
English
step
English, today
instep
Built from
From in + step. step comes from Middle English steppen. From Middle English steppen, from Old English steppan (“to step, go, proceed, advance”), stepe (“step”), from Proto-West Germanic stappjan, from Proto-Germanic stapjaną (“to step”), stapiz (“step”), from Proto-Indo-European stebʰ- (“to support, stomp, curse, be amazed”). Cognate with West Frisian stappe (“to step”), frr stape (“to walk, trudge”), Dutch stappen (“to step, walk”), wa steper (“to walk away, leave”), German stapfen (“to trudge, stomp, plod”) and further to Slavic Polish stąpać (“to stomp, stamp, step, tread”), Russian ступать and Polish stopień (“step, stair, rung, degree”), Russian степень. Related to stamp, stomp.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA