Patten Meaning
/ˈpat(ə)n/Definition, CEFR level C2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAny of various types of footwear with thick soles, often used to elevate the foot, especially wooden clogs.
nounOne of various wooden attachments used to lift a shoe above wet or muddy ground.
Sentence Examples
The patten on her shoe was broken.
She wore a patten to protect her shoe.
She walked carefully in her wooden patten shoes.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
In rainy weather, she wore wooden ____ to keep her shoes clean.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The actress wore wooden ____ shoes in the period drama set in seventeenth-century Amsterdam.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English patyn, patin, pateyn, from Old French patin, from patte (“paw, hoof”), from Latin patta, of imitative origin.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"I went and told part of the excise money till twelve o’clock, and then called on my wife and took her to Mr. Pierces, she in the way being exceedingly troubled with a pair of new pattens, and I vexed to go so slow, it being late."
— 1660 February 2 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “January 24th, 1659–1660”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume (please specify |volume=I to X), London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1893–1899, →OCLC:
"Tom Freckle, the smith's son, was the next victim to her rage. He was an ingenious workman, and made excellent pattens; nay, the very patten with which he was knocked down was his own workmanship."
— 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter VIII, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book IV:
""I fear there is a chase; I think I hear three or four galloping together; I am sure I hear more horses than one." / "Pooh, pooh, it is the wench of the house that is clattering to the well in her pattens; [...].""
— 1819, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter V, in Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. […], volume I (The Bride of Lammermoor), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 150:
"Nobody had appeared belonging to the house except a person in pattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; I don't know with what object, and I don't think she did."
— 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 4, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:
"They presented the most extraordinary and comic aspect imaginable, with their shaven heads and long beard; (the heads of all Mussulmen are shaved quite bare, with the exception of a tuft on the very top, which is left for the angel of the tomb on the day of judgment, say they, to grasp and carry them up to heaven by;) besides these, other objects are seen wrapped up in towels, with black grisled beards tickling their breasts, and tottering along on a high pair of pattens or rather stilts, at the imminent danger, as it appears, of breaking their necks."
— 1838, Charles Greenstreet Addison, Damascus and Palmyra: A Journey to the East - Volume 2, page 64:
Explore More C2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
In rainy weather, she wore wooden ____ to keep her shoes clean.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The actress wore wooden ____ shoes in the period drama set in seventeenth-century Amsterdam.