1682. Behn, Roundheads . . . Hews. "Who, pox! shall we stand making children's shoes all the year? No: let's begin to settle the nation, I say, and go through-stitch with our work."
1708-10. Swift, Polite Conversation, i. Col. . . . Mr. Buzzard has married again! Lady Smart. This is his Fourth Wife; Then he has been shod round.
d.1734. North, Life of Lord Guildford, ii. 96. He used to say George (his son) would die in his shoes.
1742. Branston [Walpole, Lett. to Mann (1833), i. 180]. At the end of the walk hung a rogue on a gibbet! He beheld it and wept, for it caus'd him to muse on Full many a Campbell, that died with his shoes on.
1809. Malkin, Gil Blas [Routledge], 146. I promised to place him in my late mistress's shoes.
1840. Barham, Ingold. Leg. And there is Sir Carnaby Jenks, of the Blues, All come to see a man die in his shoes.
1842. Taylor, Edwin the Fair, iii. 8. Not alone them that were placed by Edred in the shoes of seculars that by Edred were expulsed.
1861. Dickens, Great Expectations . . . We'll show 'em another pair of shoes than that, Pip, won't us?
1868. Brewer, Phrase and Fable, s.v. Shoeing the wild colt. Exacting a fine called 'footing' from a new comer, who is called the 'colt.' Of course, the play is between the words 'shoeing' and 'footing.'
Shoe-buckles. Not worth
shoe-buckles, phr. (old).—Of
little account (Ray).
Shoe-horn, verb. (old).—To
cuckold.
c.1650. Brathwayte, Barnaby's Jl. 1723), 45. Venus swore . . . She'd Shooe-horn her Vulcan's Forehead.
Shoeing-horn, subs. phr. (old).—A
pretext or incitement.
1562-3. Still, Gammer Gurton's Needle [Dodsley, Old Plays (Reed). ii. 8]. Shall serve as a shoing-horne, to draw on two pots of ale.
1592. Nashe, Pierce Penilesse [Works, ii. 81]. To haue some shooing horne to pull on your wine, as a rasher of the coles, or a redde herring, to stirre it about with a candles ende to make it taste better, and not to holde your peace whiles the pot is stirring.
c.1620. Fletcher and Massinger, False One, iv. 2. They swear they'll flea us, and then dry our quarters, A rasher of a salt lover is such a shoeing-horn.
1621. Burton, Anat. Melan., 246. By little and little, by that shoeing-horn of idleness . . . melancholy . . . is drawn on.
16[?]. Haven of Health, cxxxii. 134. Yet a gamond of bacon well dressed is a good shooing horn to pull down a cup of wine.
c.1620. Disc. of New World, 68. Then, sir, comes me up a service of shooing-hornes (do yee see) of all sorts; salt-cakes, red herrings, anchoves, and gammons of bacon—and aboundance of such pullers-on.
1712. Spectator, No. 536. Most of our fine young ladies . . . retain in their service, by some small encouragement, as great a number as they can of supernumerary and insignificant fellows, which they use like whifflers, and commonly call shoeing-horns. These are never designed to know the length of the foot, but only, when a good offer comes, to whet and spin him up to the point.
1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, xxiv. This, and some other desultory conversation, served as a shoeing-horn to draw on another cup of ale.
Shoe-leather! intj. (thieves').—A
cry of warning; 'Look out!'
Fr. 'Chou! chou!' or 'Acresto!'
Shoemaker. Phrases, &c. 'Who
goes worse shod than the shoemaker's
wife' (B. E.) = an
excuse for the lack of something
one ought to possess; in the
shoemaker's stocks = 'pincht
with straight shoes' (B. E.);
shoe-maker's pride = creaking
shoes; shoe-maker's holiday
(see quot. 1793, and cf. Crispin's
holiday).
