footprint

from WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)

footprint
    n 1: a mark of a foot or shoe on a surface; "the police made
         casts of the footprints in the soft earth outside the
         window" [syn: {footprint}, {footmark}, {step}]
    2: a trace suggesting that something was once present or felt or
       otherwise important; "the footprints of an earlier
       civilization"
    3: the area taken up by some object; "the computer had a desktop
       footprint of 10 by 16 inches"

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Footprint \Foot"print`\, n.
   The impression of the foot; a trace or footmark; as,
   "Footprints of the Creator."
   [1913 Webster]

from Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)

footprint
 n.

   1. The floor or desk area taken up by a piece of hardware.

   2. [IBM] The audit trail (if any) left by a crashed program (often in
   plural, footprints). See also {toeprint}.

   3. RAM footprint: The minimum amount of RAM which an OS or other
   program takes; this figure gives one an idea of how much will be left
   for other applications. How actively this RAM is used is another
   matter entirely. Recent tendencies to featuritis and software bloat
   can expand the RAM footprint of an OS to the point of making it nearly
   unusable in practice. [This problem is, thankfully, limited to
   operating systems so stupid that they don't do virtual memory -- ESR]

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)

footprint

   1. <jargon, hardware> The floor or desk area taken up by a
   piece of hardware.

   2. <jargon, storage> The amount of {disk} or {RAM} taken up by
   a program or file.

   3. ({IBM}) The {audit trail} left by a crashed program (often
   "footprints").

   See also {toeprint}.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1995-04-25)

from Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

45 Moby Thesaurus words for "footprint":
      boss, bump, colophon, concavity, convexity, dactylogram,
      dactylograph, dent, dint, embossment, excrescence, fingerprint,
      footmark, footstep, fossil footprint, ichnite, ichnolite, impress,
      impression, imprint, indent, indentation, indention, lump, pad,
      paw print, pawmark, pimple, print, pug, pugmark, seal, sigil, sign,
      signet, spoor, stamp, step, stud, thumbmark, thumbprint, trace,
      track, tract, vestige

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