A narrow path for people to walk, not for cars. In British English this often means a path through fields or woods, sometimes with a public-footpath sign — you may walk there even when the land around it is private. That country path is the first meaning to learn. Though actually the same word shifts by country. In Britain the paved strip beside a road is more often the pavement. In Australia and New Zealand, footpath is the normal word for that roadside walkway (what Americans call the sidewalk). If a British person says keep to the footpath in the countryside, they mean the marked walking line, not the street.