ped-, pedi-, -pedal, -ped, -pede, -pedia +

1. Wing-footed, having wings on the feet, like the figures of Mercury; hence, swift-footed.
2. In zoology, having the toes connected by a membrane that serves as a wing, as with bats; a cheiropterous animal.

Whenever anyone is expeditious (fast) about doing anything, it is because that person's feet are not tied up. This is because the Latin word pes (a stem of ped) means "foot" and ex means "out of".

When anyone expedites anything, he/she is actually "freeing" the feet for faster action. An expedition is a body of people sent on some important undertaking and so their feet must be free to move without hindrance. Impede means "to tangle the feet" or "to obstruct" the movement of the feet.

People often see this ped element in other words. When people refer to "pedal extremities", they mean "feet". When anyone pushes the pedals of a bicycle, it is done with the feet. A pedestrian must use the feet for walking. A quadruped has four feet while a centipede has "100 feet"; or a large number of them because it may be impossible to count all of them.

While pes may refer to a foot as a measure of length, it can also refer to what the Roman poet, Horace, spoke humorously of as, sesquipedalia verba (words which are a "foot and a half long") and which exist in English as sesquipedalians with the same meaning.

Keep in mind that all of the ped words which you see in English are not from the Latin "foot" or "feet". There are also some Greek ped words in English which do not mean "foot"!

Having feet or legs in the form of serpents, serpent-footed: an epithet of certain giants of ancient mythology.

1. A two-footed animal.
2. Having two feet; two-footed.

1. Having two feet, two-footed, biped; specifically designating a reptile that uses its two hind feet for walking or running; also denoting this method of movement.
2. Capable of locomotion on two feet; e.g., an iguana and some other lizards have this capability.
3. Sometimes used humorously as a reference to a human who is "a bipedaling monoglot" (a two-footed person who speaks one language) or a "bipedaling polyglot" (a two-footed person who speaks many languages).

Having short feet (or legs); such as, a short-legged bird.

Relating to the head and the feet.

1. Having feet like those of a goat.
2. Goat-footed; such as, a satyr.

Relating to the hand, wrist, and the foot (in carpopedal spasm, a term applied to the local convulsions which affect the hands and feet of children).

A fast runner; swift footed.

Of one hundred (metrical) feet.

1. A venomous predatory arthropod of the order Chilopoda, characterized by one pair of legs per leg-bearing segment. The venom is injected through the first pair of leg-like appendages, modified into piercing claws; the bites may be painful and locally necrotic, but seldom are dangerous, except to very young children. Genera found in the U.S. include Scutigera, Lithobius, Scolopendra, and Geophilus.
2. A name given to wingless vermiform articulated animals having many feet, constituting the order Cheilopoda of the class Myriapoda. Those of tropical countries are very venomous.

A name applied to the mammals possessed of hands, including the Bimana (man), and Quadrumana (monkeys, lemurs).

One of a pair of limbs bearing large claws, or chelae, found in decapod crustacea.

1. Ten feet in length.
2. Having ten feet.