footwear vs covering

footwear and covering both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
footwear	Yes	No	No	No
covering	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, covering is a hypernym of footwear; that is, covering is a word with a broader meaning than footwear:

footwear: covering for a person's feet
covering: an artifact that covers something else (usually to protect or shelter or conceal it)

footwear (noun)	covering (noun)
covering for a person's feet	the act of protecting something by covering it
clothing worn on a person's feet	the work of applying something
	the act of concealing the existence of something by obstructing the view of it
	an artifact that covers something else (usually to protect or shelter or conceal it)
	a natural object that covers or envelops