Crossword clues for footwear
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. An item of clothing that is worn on the foot; a shoe, sandal, etc.
WordNet
n. clothing worn on a person's feet
covering for a person's feet [syn: footgear]
Wikipedia
Footwear refers to garments worn on the feet, which originally serves to purpose of protection against adversities of the environment, usually regarding ground textures and temperature. Footwear in the manner of shoes therefore primarily serves the purpose to ease the locomotion and prevent injuries. Secondly footwear can also be used for fashion and adornment as well as to indicate the status or rank of the person within a social structure. Socks and other hosiery are typically worn additionally between the feet and other footwear for further comfort and relief.
Cultures have different customs regarding footwear. These include not using any in some situations, usually bearing a symbolic meaning. This can however also be imposed on specific individuals to place them at a practical disadvantage against shod people, if they are excluded from having footwear available or are prohibited from using any. This usually takes place in situations of captivity, such as imprisonment or slavery, where the groups are among other things distinctly divided by whether or whether not footwear is being worn. In these cases the use of footwear categorically indicates the exercise of power as against being devoid of footwear, evidently indicating inferiority.
Footwear is in use since earliest human history, archeological finds of complete shoes date back to the copper age (ca. 5.000 BCE). Some ancient civilizations, such as Egypt however saw no practical need for footwear due to convenient climatic and landscape situations and used shoes primarily as ornaments and insignia of power.
The Romans saw clothing and footwear as unmistakable signs of power and status in society, and most Romans wore footwear, while slaves and peasants remained barefoot. The Middle Ages saw the rise of high-heeled shoes, also associated with power, and the desire to look larger than life, and artwork from that period often depicts bare feet as a symbol of poverty. Depictions of captives such as prisoners or slaves from the same period well into the 18th century show the individuals barefooted almost exclusively, at this contrasting the prevailing partakers of the scene. Officials like prosecutors, judges but also slave owners or passive bystanders were usually portrayed wearing shoes.
In some cultures, people remove their shoes before entering a home. Bare feet are also seen as a sign of humility and respect, and adherents of many religions worship or mourn while barefoot. Some religious communities explicitly require people to remove shoes before they enter holy buildings, such as temples.
In several cultures people remove their shoes as a sign of respect towards someone of higher standing. In a similar context deliberately forcing other people to go barefoot while being shod oneself has been used to clearly showcase and convey one's superiority within a setting of power disparity.
Practitioners of the craft of shoemaking are called shoemakers, cobblers, or cordwainers.
Usage examples of "footwear".
She took off wet boots, and the lining made of felted mammoth wool, and changed into one of her dry outfits and the soft indoor footwear Talut had shown her how to make.
It weighs but 27 pounds and can be transported with the troops on a motorcar, and may be used anywhere to keep the shoes in serviceable shape until the troops can reach permanent camps, where new footwear can be provided.
She washed off the mud, then spread her wraps and footwear on the rock outcropping.
Her own natural pads provided more than enough protection, and it added a nice element of stealth to her approach that she found preferable to clonking about in Starfleet-issue footwear.
The woman and man were dressed for the cold in fur parkas with hoods pulled tight around their faces, and fur leggings which were tucked into footwear that was wrapped around the lower edge of the trousers and tied.
And the warm air in 32A is stuffy with CO2 and unpleasantly scented with the aroma of soft male middle-aged bodies not wearing footwear, a stale meaty cheesy smell, more nauseous even than the E.
If my son can have his choice of a seemingly limitless range of scrupulously engineered, biomechanically efficient footwear, why does my computer keyboard suck?
Probably only he and Moist heard Miss Dearheart purr: ‘What is sticking in your foot is a Mitzy “Pretty Lucretia” four-inch heel, the most dangerous footwear in the world.
Even in this fancy footwear it's still taken me three days and a seven-league charley horse to make it this far.
Twikanrozex tracked the human's progress across the strip of fairgrounds pavement, which looked and felt exactly like grass except that it was impervious to both footwear and the elements and needed neither light nor water to maintain its springiness and color.
Then Seyganko and all of the fanda saw the Fire Eyes within the footwear and it made it seem like two tiny volcanoes bubbling with molten green stone.
Then just as rapidly the individual laces found each other and tied new knots, so that Grott, Slag, and Vermin were joined together by their footwear.
They had also changed into fresh footwear from the Newfield Trading Post—their bog-slog had left all of them muddy from the shins down—and had an hour's rest.
It took me a while to locate Vander, but I finally caught him in the impression lab, where pizza boxes ingenious cops used to transport plaster casts of tire tracks and footwear prints were neatly stacked in corners, and a door someone had tried to kick in was leaning against a wall.
The few who hoped to preserve their footwear wore those clear, old-fashioned rainboots that button on over your shoes.