[Vocabulary] bare feet

[constantinusphilo]

This one is from The Secret History by Donna Tartt:
I watched him move around the dim, dawn-lit kitchen in his bare feet.
Is the phrase in bold common? Why not just 'barefoot'?

 

[jutfrank]

My first thought is because of the sentence position, the adverbial being quite distant from the verb. If the adverbial were barefoot, you could have:

I watched him move barefoot around the dim, dawn-lit kitchen.

But it doesn't quite work very well to use a one-word adverb so far removed at the end of a fairly long verb phrase. I think the longer and commonly used in his bare feet bridges the gap a little more effectively.

I also think in his bare feet is quite a bit more descriptive and illustrative for the reader.

 

[Tdol]

Why not just 'barefoot'?

You may be answering your own question with the word just. It is, as Jutfrank says, a bit more colourful.

 

[Rover_KE]

I watched him move around the dim, dawn-lit kitchen in his bare feet.
Is the phrase in bold common?

It's very common.

 

[Tdol]

The are the Ngram results for barefoot/bare feet. Obviously, this captures different uses of the second. The uses for in his bare feet are much lower, but you'd have to go through all the prepositions.