sb. arch. Forms: 6–1 choppine, shoppino, chopino, 7 chapin(e, chapiney, cioppino, ciopine, chioppine, chiopin, cheopine, chippine, (?) chipeener, 7– chopin(e. [Identical with obs. F. chapins, chappins ‘choppins, a kinde of high slippers for low women’ (Cotgr.), and Sp. chapin ‘a woman’s … high cork shoes’ (Minsheu); mod.Sp. chapin ‘clog with a cork sole,’ Pg. chapim ‘a high-soled clog made of cork.’ The Eng. writers c. 1600 persistently treated the word as Italian, even spelling it cioppino, pl. cioppini, and expressly associated it with Venice, so that, although not recorded in Italian Dicts., it was app. temporarily fashionable there. App. orig. Sp., and a deriv. of chapa plate of metal, etc.; hence perh. orig. a shoe with a thin cork sole, and gradually transferred. See Skeat in Trans. Phil. Soc., 1885–7, 79.]
A kind of shoe raised above the ground by means of a cork sole or the like; worn about 1600 in Spain and Italy, esp. at Venice, where they were monstrously exaggerated. There is little or no evidence of their use in England (except on the stage); but they have been treated by Sir Walter Scott, and others after him, as parts of English costume in the 17th c.
1577. Eden & Willes, Hist. Trav., 252 b. He [Chinaman] goeth in woodden Choppines a foot hygh from the grounde.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, I. xv. 49. The actors did walke vpon those high corked shoes … which now they call in Spain and Italy Shoppini.
1598. Florio, Piannelloni, great pattins or choppins. Ibid., Zoccoli, chopinoes that women vse to weare.
1599. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev., II. i. I do wish myself one of my mistresses choppini. Ibid. (1616), Devil an Ass, III. iv. (N.). To say he wears cioppinos, and they do so In Spain.
1602. Shaks., Ham., II. ii. 445. Byrlady your Ladiship is neerer Heauen then when I saw you last, by the altitude of a Choppine.
1611. Coryat, Crudities, 261. There is one thing used of the Venetian women … that is not to be observed amongst any other women in Christendome…. It is called a ‘Chapiney,’ which they weare vnder their shoes … by how much the nobler a woman is, by so much the higher are her Chapineys.
1617. Moryson, Itin., IV. i. 172. The Women of Venice weare choppines or shoos three or foure hand-bredths high.
c. 1645. Howell, Fam. Lett. (1650), 99. From their high chapins.
1645. Evelyn, Diary, June. The noblemen stalking with their lady’s on choppines.
1668. R. L’Estrange, Vis. Quev., vi. 137. Raising themselves upon their Ciopines.
1669. Woodhead, St. Teresa, II. xv. 118. She put her Chapines into her sleeve, and lifting her long coats went as fast as she could.
1680. [Mrs. Behn ?], Revenge, or Match Newgate, III. 27 (D.). I do not love to endanger my back with stooping so low; if you wou’d wear Chipeeners, much might be done.
1822. Scott, Nigel, viii. As I will but take my chopins and my cloak … and cross the street to neighbour Ramsay’s.
1861. Reade, Cloister & H., III. 302. Your wooden heeled chopines to raise your little stunted limbs up.
