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

1. Wing-footed, having wings on the feet: "Alipeds, like Mercury (the Roman god that served as messenger to the other gods) and Hermes (the Greek equivalent of Mercury) were considered to be swift-footed because they had wings on their feet."
2. In zoology, having the toes connected by a membrane that serves as a wing: "Bats are known as alipeds or cheiropterous (hand-wing) animals."

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 or she is actually "freeing" the feet for faster action. An expedition is a group 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: "Certain giants of ancient mythology were called anquipeds."

One of a group of perching birds that have the middle toe, more or less, united to the outer and inner toes: "One example of an anomaliped bird it the kingfisher."

"Anomaliipods is another term for those fowls whose middle toe is united to the exterior toes by three bones, and to the interior toe by just one bone."

Any animal that has two feet: "It is easy to realize that unless a bird has lost one of its feet, all of them are bibeds."

"Even people are classified as bipeds; however, dogs, cats, and all of the other animals that have four feet are not bipeds."

A reference to two-footed creatures: "The bipedal chickens, ducks, and other fowl are a primary source of food for bipedal humans."

1. Using two feet as a means of movement: The birds were bipedaling on the beach for food."
2. Capable of locomotion on two feet: "When they are really in a big hurry, some iguanas and other lizards bipedal their way across land or water."
3. Sometimes used humorously as a reference to a human: "Unless something has caused a person to lose one, or both, of his or her feet, they bipedal themselves around."

A reference to walking or running with two feet: "Humans are best known as bipedaling creatures."

"Some people are known as bipedaling monoglots (two-footed people who speak one language) or bipedaling polyglots (two-footed people who speak many languages).

The normal functions of two feet as with humans and birds.

A term for measuring distances by walking or pacing: "The worker used a method called bipedality to indicate a certain distance by a walking."

"The gardner stepped off five bipedalities from the wall and started to dig a hole for the new tree."

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.

A satyr, with goat feet.

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).