different between footnote vs column

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English

Alternative forms

• f.n. (abbreviation)

Etymology

From foot +? note.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?f?t?n??t/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?f?t?no?t/

Noun

footnote (plural footnotes)

1. A short piece of text, often numbered, placed at the bottom of a printed page, that adds a comment, citation, reference etc, to a designated part of the main text.

   Coordinate terms: headnote, endnote, hatnote, marginal note

2. (by extension) An event of lesser importance than some larger event to which it is related.
   • 2014, Michael White, "Roll up, roll up! The Amazing Salmond will show a Scotland you won't believe", The Guardian, 8 September 2014:

     In that context Scotland's fate is a modest element, a symptom of wider fragmentation of the current global order, a footnote to the fall of empire and the Berlin Wall, important to us and punchdrunk neighbours like France and Italy, a mere curiosity to emerging titans like Brazil.

3. A qualification to the import of something.

Translations

Verb

footnote (third-person singular simple present footnotes, present participle footnoting, simple past and past participle footnoted)

1. To add footnotes to a text.

   Synonym: annotate

See also

• marginalia
• reference mark

Further reading

• footnote on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Etymology

From Middle English columne, columpne, columpe, borrowed from Old French columne, from Latin columna (“a column, pillar, post”), originally a collateral form of columen, contraction culmen (“a pillar, top, crown, summit”). Akin to Latin collis (“a hill”), celsus (“high”), probably to Ancient Greek ??????? (koloph?n, “top, summit”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k?l?m/
• (General American), (Ireland) enPR: k?l??m, IPA^(key): /?k?l?m/
• (General American, rare), (Ireland) enPR: k?l?j?m, IPA^(key): /?k?lj?m/
• Hyphenation: col?umn
• Rhymes: -?l?m

Noun

column (plural columns)

1. (architecture) A solid upright structure designed usually to support a larger structure above it, such as a roof or horizontal beam, but sometimes for decoration.
2. A vertical line of entries in a table, usually read from top to bottom.
3. A body of troops or army vehicles, usually strung out along a road.
4. A body of text meant to be read line by line, especially in printed material that has multiple adjacent such on a single page.

5. A unit of width, especially of advertisements, in a periodical, equivalent to the width of a usual column of text.

6. (by extension) A recurring feature in a periodical, especially an opinion piece, especially by a single author or small rotating group of authors, or on a single theme.

7. Something having similar vertical form or structure to the things mentioned above, such as a spinal column.
8. (botany) The gynostemium
9. (chemistry) An object used to separate the different components of a liquid or to purify chemical compounds.

Synonyms

• (upright structure): post, pillar, sile

Antonyms

• (line of table entries): row (which is horizontal)

Hypernyms

• (upright structure): beam

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• column in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• column in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.