trench foot

noun

: a painful foot disorder resembling frostbite and resulting from prolonged exposure to cold and wet

Examples of trench foot in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

For many American soldiers, learning about the jungle — including jaguars and trench foot — has meant confronting the limits of American technological prowess, inspiring a greater degree of humility. —Damien Cave Mark Abramson, New York Times, 15 Dec. 2023

Dire reports warned of unserviceable and overflowing toilets and looming trench foot. —Jake Sheridan, Chicago Tribune, 10 Sep. 2023

Perspiration needs to be managed; moisture increases the risk of hypothermia and trench foot. —Danielle Bochove, Natalia Drozdiak, Anchorage Daily News, 19 Mar. 2023

The medics often see people with ailments including trench foot, frostbite, blisters from too-small boots, gout and infected lacerations, Burns says. —oregonlive, 24 Feb. 2023

Cases of athlete’s foot, corns, toenails that had gone uncut for years and were coiled around and around themselves — all were uncomfortable and easily fixed, as was trench foot. —Tracy Kidder, New York Times, 5 Jan. 2023

Providers are anecdotally seeing the worst cases of things like trench foot, a type of foot damage from prolonged exposure to cold, damp and unsanitary conditions causing feet to swell and smell like decay. —Saphara Harrell, oregonlive, 18 Apr. 2021

O’Connell and a colleague later made a small study of death records, which suggested that patients with a history of frostbite — or of trench foot — had a death rate seven times as high as other homeless people of the same age group. —Tracy Kidder, New York Times, 5 Jan. 2023

And doctors at the Bakhmut hospital said hypothermia and trench foot, a painful skin condition caused by prolonged immersion in cold water, were common among Ukrainian forces, though treated quickly and often at the front line. —Natalia Yermak, BostonGlobe.com, 27 Nov. 2022

Word History

First Known Use

1915, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

trench foot

noun

: a painful foot disorder resembling frostbite and resulting from exposure to cold and wet