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Cloven Foot

.

To show the cloven foot, i.e. to show a knavish intention, a base motive. The allusion is to Satan, represented with the legs and feet of a goat; and, however he might disguise himself, he could never conceal his cloven feet. (See Bag oʹ Nails, Goat.)

“Real grief little influenced its composition and the cloven foot peeps out in some letters written by him at the period.”—St. James’s Magazine.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.