World Cup Word of the Day. It’s the fourth day of the World Cup and today, Languagecaster introduces the phrase out on their feet. Every day we plan to bring you a word or phrase that has been part of the World Cup 2014 story.World Cup Word of the Day:A Out on Their Feet
Brazil, is of course a huge country, spanning the equator and the climate changes accordingly. Tropical heat and humidity in the north, rainfall and quite cold weather in the south at this time of year. Many teams have been worried about playing in the north of the country due to the high humidity and temperatures. In extremely hot weather it is hard to maintain stamina, hard to keep going. To describe this, we use the phrase ‘the players are out on their feet‘; it means they can just about stand but can’t run around. The phrase comes from boxing when a boxer is hit hard but does not fall. He is unable to continue fighting however, so is ‘out’ on his feet.
- Example: The Ecuador team, looking out on their feet, struggled to track back. (The Scotsman)
- Example: The players look out on their feet here, we are in for a very long last 10 minutes.
Make sure you check out more football language at our glossary and also our World Cup posts. You can also leave a comment if you haveA a suggestion for our world Cup Word of the Day below in the comments section.

I was at the Japan-Ivory Coast game and it looked as if the Japanese side were out on their feet in the last 20 minutes.