clodhopper

Definition

A strong shoe for heavy-duty use, a boot.

Etymology

Compound of clod + hopper (agentive form of the verb hop). Perhaps affected by analogy with grasshopper. Attested in the sense of "peasant" since the seventeenth century; the extended sense of "boot" or "shoe" dates from the nineteenth century.

Example Sentences

• "...who had got on his "hill shoes," as he calls a pair of clodhoppers as thick as a ploughman's, and stuck round with nails."
• "We had to walk slow because of his wooden clod-hoppers, and that was the way I wanted it now"
• "Smiling Jim Mead of New York tries on his GI clodhopper boots. He decided to return them "because we couldn't make any altitude with those aboard.""

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