Obs. exc. dial. and Hist. Also 6 startop(p)e, -uppe, stertup, 6–7 startop. Also pl. 6 stertops, stert-, startuppes, styrtoppes, stertyppes. [f. vbl. phr. start up (see START v. 13); as if ‘a shoe that starts up to the middle of the leg.’] Originally, a kind of ‘high-low’ or boot, worn by rustics; in later use, a kind of gaiter or legging. Chiefly in plural.
1517. Test. Ebor. (Surtees), V. 83. j par sotularium quæ dicuntur stertuppes.
1530. Palsgr., 251/1. Payre of startoppes, hovssettes.
1551–2. Act 5 & 6 Edw. VI., c. 15 § 5. Any Shoes, Boots, Buskyns, Styrtoppes or Slippers.
1558. in Feuillerat, Revels Q. Eliz. (1908), 35. Imployed into edging of Stertyppes for the Patriarkes. Ibid. (1572), 159. viii payer of white startops of cloth of sylver.
1573. Baret, Alv., S 328. A high shooe of rawe leather called a stertvp, pero.
1574. Withals’ Dict., 54 b. In a maner all husbande men doe weare stertups.
1591. Greene, Farew. to Follie, Wks. (Grosart), IX. 265. His pompes were a little too heauie, being trimmed start-vps made of a paire of boote legges.
1600. J. Pory, trans. Leo’s Africa, III. 156. The streetes are so mirie, that you cannot walk in them without startups.
c. 1605. Drayton, Pastorals, Ecl. ix. 9 (1619), 467. When not a Shepheard any thing that could, But greaz’d his start-ups black as Autumns Sloe.
1608. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iv. IV. Decay, 114. Her neat, fit, Startups of green Velvet bee, Flourisht with silver.
a. 1626. Moryson, Itin., IV. (1903), 451. [Italian] Gentlewemen … weare high Startups or Pantofills of wood, so as they cannot goe without helpe.
1667. Cotton, Scarron., IV. 124. Yet she made shift to stuff each start-up, And tie ’um to the rest on’s Wardope.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, IV. vii. (Roxb.), 325/2. Star-tops or hose foulded downe belowe the knees.
1777. Horæ Subsec. [MS., Devon dialect] 411 (E.D.D.). Start-ups, a kind of button’d buskins. Not high shoes as Littleton represents them.
1821. Scott, Kenilw., xxiv. This was a stupid lout,… with … his hose about his heels, and huge startups upon his feet.
1836. R. Furness, Astrologer, I. Wks. (1858), 137. Thor’s knitted cap, suspended on a wire, And hoddin start-ups warm’d above the fire.
1854. Miss Baker, Northampt. Gloss., Start-ups, short gaiters: long ones being styled leggings.
