toeprint

English

Etymology

toe +‎ print

Pronunciation

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

Noun

toeprint (plural toeprints)

1. The mark left by a toe.
   • 1955, The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science:

     A misleading toeprint may not only be planted on the scene of crime, but just as well on crime objects such as anonymous letters and other articles. In that case there is full and quiet opportunity for the "planting".

   • 2010, Jessica Kerwin Jenkins, Encyclopedia of the Exquisite:

     “It was, in fact, her natural walk,” he wrote in his autobiography. “Her footprints on a beach would be in astraight line, the heel descending exactly before the last toeprint, throwing her pelvis into motion."

2. (computing, informal) A very small footprint (amount of physical surface taken up by equipment).
   • 1989, InfoWorld, volume 11, number 35:

     Total toeprint including keyboard for the miniature workstation is 83 square inches […]

   • 1991, Byte, volume 16, page 44:

     The tiny, shall we say, "toeprint" of the machine is due to a remarkable feat of miniaturization by Intel […]

3. (genetics) A measure of 30S-mRNA binding.
   • 2010, Single Molecule Tools, Part A: Fluorescence Based Approaches:

     In the absence of IF3, the 10-fold molar excess of tRNA^Phe produces a strong +18 toeprint relative to the +15 toeprint.

   • 2012, E. C. C. Lin, A. Simon Lynch, Regulation of Gene Expression in Escherichia coli:

     In the case of the entrapment model on the contrary, one does not expect the toeprint to disappear with increasing repressor concentrations, since in this case, both repressor and ribosome can bind the same mRNA.

   • 2012, K.H. Nierhaus, F. Franceschi, A.R. Subramanian, The Translational Apparatus: Structure, Function, Regulation, Evolution, page 198:

     Lastly, a "toeprint" of 30S subunits bound to T4 gene 32 mRNA has been observed with MMLV reverse transcriptase; while the experiment has not been quantitated, appearance of a signal at a subunit concentration of 0.02 μM is consistent with a binding constant on the order of 10⁷ M^-1 (Hartz et al., 1991).

See also

• fingerprint

References

• Hacker's Jargon File via FOLDOC
• [1] via [2]