That part of a stocking that covers the foot.
1766. Sharp, Fracture, in Phil. Trans., LVII. 86. I do not always remove the shoe and stocking-foot.
1853. R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour, lxviii. What a convenience to have one’s wife’s maid to sew on one’s buttons, and keep one’s toes in one’s stocking-feet!
1884. Rowlett, Technol. Framework Knitting, II. 342. Socks or half-hose. The feet are made in the same way as stocking feet.
b. As a purse or receptacle for money laid by. Chiefly fig.
1894. ‘H. Haliburton,’ Furth in Field, II. 75. The cadger was just as eager to make the petty disbursement from his ‘stocking-foot’ or leather pouch.
1915. J. Buchan, Nelson’s Hist. War, V. xl. 153. For them [i.e., the Treasury bonds] the peasant and the small tradesman brought out his store of gold from the stocking-foot.
c. (In, on) one’s stocking feet: with only one’s stockings on one’s feet, without one’s shoes.
1802. R. Anderson, Cumbld. Ball. (1808), 13. Wully … in his clogs top teyme did beat; But Tamer, in her stockin feet, She bang’d him out and out.
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb., III. iii. (1820), 178. Leaving their shoes at the door, and entering devoutly on their stocking feet.
1854. Thackeray, Newcomes, viii. Binnie found the Colonel … arrayed in what are called in Scotland his stocking-feet.
1858. Trollope, Doctor Thorne, xii. In his stocking-feet … he was five feet five.
1901. Theodora W. Wilson, T’ Bacca Queen, xxvii. 247. Her husband was seated in stocking feet in the rocking-chair.
