A <em>feat</em> is an impressive achievement: "Getting it finished in a week was quite a feat." <em>Feet</em> is simply the plural of foot, whether body parts or units of length: "My feet are killing me", "the wall is six feet high". They sound the same and are otherwise unrelated.
The core difference
There is no subtlety here — the words share a sound and nothing else. The reason the pair appears on confusion lists is that both spellings are valid words, so autocorrect and spellcheck let the error straight through.
How to use feat
A feat is something difficult done well. It is countable, and it usually attracts a modifier or an "of" phrase:
- "Restoring the roof without closing the church was no small feat."
- "The bridge is a genuine feat of engineering."
- "He performed feats of memory that astonished the audience."
Common companions: a remarkable feat, no mean feat, quite a feat, feats of strength, a feat of endurance.
How to use feet
Feet is the irregular plural of foot. It covers the body part, the unit of measurement, and the base of things:
- "Take your feet off the sofa."
- "The ceiling is nine feet high."
- "The chair wobbles because one of its feet is shorter than the others."
Note that some fixed expressions keep the singular even though they describe a base: it is at the foot of the stairs and at the foot of the page, never "feet".
English is thick with idioms using it: cold feet, find your feet, get your feet wet, back on your feet, sweep someone off their feet, drag your feet.
The memory trick
Count the letter e. Feet has two e's, like the two feet you stand on. Feat has one e and one achievement. If that doesn't stick, try the substitution test: swap in "achievement", and if the sentence survives, you want feat. Swap in "one foot" in the singular, and if that reshapes cleanly, you want feet.
The edge cases
Measurements have a wrinkle worth knowing. When a measurement is used as a compound adjective before a noun, English reverts to the singular: a six-foot wall, a ten-foot drop, not "a six-feet wall". Standing alone after the number, it stays plural: the wall is six feet high. Heights of people are often given as "six foot two" in speech, which is standard informal British usage.
You will also see feat. with a full stop on music credits, where it abbreviates featuring: "Track 4 (feat. Nina Simone)". That is a shortening of a different word altogether and has nothing to do with achievements.
Lastly, in poetry a foot is a unit of metre, so a line of iambic pentameter contains five feet — a nice case where both senses of the word live side by side.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it "no small feat" or "no small feet"?
"No small feat." The phrase means a considerable achievement. "No small feet" would be a comment on somebody's shoe size.
Is it "six foot tall" or "six feet tall"?
"Six feet tall" is the standard written form. "Six foot tall" is common in speech and informal British writing and is widely accepted. Before a noun, always use the singular: "a six-foot fence".
What does "feat." mean on a song title?
It abbreviates "featuring" and credits a guest performer, as in "Artist A feat. Artist B". It is unconnected to the noun meaning an achievement.