The Chinese word 大脚 (dàjiǎo) is a compound noun formed by combining the adjective 大 (dà), meaning "big" or "large", with the noun 脚 (jiǎo), meaning "foot". It follows the standard modifier-noun grammatical structure in Chinese, where the descriptive element precedes the core object it describes. Therefore, 大脚 literally translates to "big foot" or "large feet", and it can be used literally to describe physical anatomy or, historically and figuratively, to refer to women with unbound feet (in contrast to the bound feet, or 小脚, of past customs).