Underfoot means directly beneath where you walk. Wet underfoot, trampled underfoot, getting underfoot.
Conditions underfoot is the standard phrase in weather and sport reporting for the state of the ground. Trampled underfoot is figurative as often as literal, meaning ignored and crushed. Getting underfoot is what small children and dogs do. Note that the word is under plus foot and is Middle English.
1adverbunderfootDirectly beneath where you walk.
“The dry leaves crunched underfoot as we walked through the woods.”
underfoot is a position.
Middle English underfote is under plus foot. The compound is as old as the two words together.
Middle English
underfoote
English, today
underfoot
From Middle English underfoote, underfote, equivalent to under + foot. Cognate with Middle Dutch ondervoet (“underfoot”). Compare also Middle Low German undervôt (“pedestal, base”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA