Crossword clues for shoehorn
shoehorn
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Shoehorn \Shoe"horn`\, Shoeing-horn \Shoe"ing-horn`\, n.
A curved piece of polished horn, wood, or metal used to facilitate the entrance of the foot into a shoe.
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Figuratively:
Anything by which a transaction is facilitated; a medium; -- by way of contempt.
--Spectator.Anything which draws on or allures; an inducement. [Low]
--Beau. & Fl.
Shoehorn \Shoe"horn\, v. t. to squeeze or force into a tight-fitting space, with or as though with a shoehorn; -- often used figuratively.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
in the figurative sense of "to put or thrust (something somewhere) by means of a 'tool,' " 1859, from shoehorn (n.). Earlier it meant "to cuckold" (mid-17c.), with a play on horn.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A tool used to assist putting the foot into a shoe by sliding the heel in. 2 (context derogatory English) Anything by which a transaction is facilitated; a medium. 3 (context obsolete English) Anything which draws on or allures; an inducement. vb. 1 (context literally English) To use a shoehorn. 2 (context transitive English) To force (something) into (a tight space); to squeeze (something) into (a schedule, etc); to exert great effort to insert or include (something).
WordNet
n. a device used for easing the foot into a shoe
v. make fit for a specific purpose [syn: tailor]
Wikipedia
A shoehorn or shoe horn (sometimes called a shoespooner) is a tool that lets the user put on a shoe more easily. It does so by keeping the shoe open and by providing a smooth surface for the foot and the heel to move, without crushing the shoe's counter (the vertical portion of the shoe that wraps around the back of the foot), in this way acting as a first class lever. Originally, shoehorns were made from animal horn, or hooves, and some made from bulls' hooves are still available for purchase. Today plastic, metal and wood are most often used. They were also made of glass and even paper. Expensive shoehorns were made from ivory, silver, shell, or bone.
There are various sizes of shoehorns, though the basic shape varies little except for the length of the handle. Long handled shoe horns, for example, are necessary for longer boots, and also used to reduce bending and straining by persons lacking joint mobility (e.g., older persons), while shoe horns with sturdy handles are useful for putting on boots or heavy iron shoes.
Usage examples of "shoehorn".
They took plenty of notes and pictures, but gave us very little in return other than diagrams of electric eggbeaters, power operated shoehorns, pencil sharpeners and such.
The molecule may be enzymatically active in one shape and inert in the other, like a shoehorn that sometimes warps into worthlessness.
It took some real finagling to shoehorn that into a regular issue, but it would have been no particular problem in a double.
For several decades during the Stalinist period and its aftermath, research on brain and behaviour in the Soviet Union became shoehorned into Pavlovian orthodoxy, despite the presence of new generations of researchers who, while prepared to give Pavlov credit for his undoubted achievements, sought to break loose theoretically.
But instead of exposing media bias, the facts had to be shoehorned into a different theory.
It was a little hole-in-the-wall of black-painted brick, shoehorned between brownstones that seemed to sag under the weight of innumerable layers of graffiti.
His generation hadremained undefined - shoehorned between the Beat Generation of Woodstockand the Generation X of MTV, too young when thirty-somethinghad ruled the airwaves, too old now for Beverley Hills, 90210, or Melrose Place.
Thus Becca - who, when I worked in publishing, gave me a worsening series of book-shaped clothes-brushes, shoehorns and hair ornaments - this year gave me a clapperboard fridge magnet.
Houses that would grace multiple acreage in Greenwich or Scarsdale or Shaker Heights are shoehorned onto half-acre rectangles.
She buys her clothes in the petite department and then shoehorns herself into them.
From above, the barge looked like a low tub with strange and gigantic shoehorns on its sides.
Reshod with the aid of meter-long shoehorns, they approached their small fleet of automobiles, while the serving women and proprietress smiled and bowed ceremoniously.