Definition
nounA heavy shoe that covers part of the leg.
nounA heavy shoe that covers part of the leg., A kind of sports shoe worn by players of certain games such as cricket and football (historically in the form of boots, now shorter, but still called the same).
Sentence Examples
And, we get each other's company to boot.
The Stars must be kicking themselves for giving him the boot.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English boote, bote (“shoe”), from Old French bote (“a high, thick shoe”). Of obscure origin, but probably related to Old French bot (“club-foot”), bot (“fat, short, blunt”), from Old Frankish *butt, from Proto-Germanic *buttaz, *butaz (“cut off, short, numb, blunt”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewt-, *bʰewd- (“to strike, push, shock”); if so, a doublet of butt. Compare Old Norse butt (“stump”), Low German butt (“blunt, plump”), Old English bytt (“small piece of land”), buttuc (“end”). More at buttock and debut.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Dr. Jayakar was not only one of them but was at places the prime mover in the historic decisions taken by a nation struggling to get free of the British boot."
— 1958, Filmindia:
"Never in its long history, and one rich with brutal inequities too, had Paris known the disgrace of seeing one section of its community prosper under the boot of an invader"
— 1989, Gilles Perrault, Pierre Azema, Paris Under the Occupation:
"Chronic unrest in Ireland, long under the British boot, was about to culminate in a popular rising."
— 2013 October 8, Stanley Weintraub, Young Mr. Roosevelt: FDR's Introduction to War, Politics, and Life, Hachette UK, →ISBN:
"The boot, thumbscrews, the shackles, and a contraption called the "warm hose", were only a few of the inflictions being too terrible to mention."
— 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 221:
"He heaved the bag and its contents over the lip of the boot and on to the flagstones. When it was out, no longer in that boot but on the ground, and the bag was still intact, he knew the worst was over."
— 1998, Ruth Rendell, A Sight For Sore Eyes, published 2010, page 260: