subs. (colloquial).—1.  In pl. a servant, at hotels and places of a kindred character, who cleans the boots of visitors; formerly BOOT-CATCHERS, because in the old riding and coaching days part of their duty was to divest travellers of their footgear.

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  2.  (military).—The youngest officer in a regimental mess.

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  3.  (old: B. E.).—‘A Scotch torture, or rack, for the leg, to draw to confession.’

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  4.  (colloquial).—In humorous (or sarcastic) combination; e.g., CLUMSY-BOOTS, LAZY-BOOTS, SLY-BOOTS, SMOOTH-BOOTS, etc.

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  c. 1680.  R. NORTH, The Lives of the Norths, 169. [Lord Guildford was nicknamed] SLYBOOTS.

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  1729.  BIGNON, The Adventures of Abdalla, 32. The frog call’d … several times, but in vain … though the SLY-BOOTS heard well enough all the while.

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  Verb (military).—1.  To beat; to strap: the punishment is irregular and unconventional, being inflicted by soldiers on a comrade discovered guilty of some serious breach of the unwritten law of comradeship, such as theft, etc.: formerly inflicted with a bootjack.

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  2.  (common).—To kick; to hoop a man.

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  WHAT BOOTS IT? phr. (B. E.).—What avails it?

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  PHRASES:—TO MAKE ONE BOOT SERVE FOR EITHER LEG = to speak with double meaning. THE BOOT IS ON THE OTHER LEG = the case is altered, responsibility is shifted. TO HAVE ONE’S HEART IN ONE’S BOOTS = to be in extreme fear. OVER SHOES, OVER BOOTS = reckless continuance of a course begun; in for a lamb, in for a sheep. LIKE OLD BOOTS = vigorously, thorough-going. TO DIE IN ONE’S BOOTS or SHOES = to be hanged. TO BUY OLD BOOTS = to marry or keep another man’s cast-off mistress. IN ONE’S BOOTS = very drunk: see SCREWED. TO GIVE THE BOOTS = to jeer at; to make a laughing-stock of. TO BET ONE’S BOOTS = a fanciful bet.

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  1595.  SHAKESPEARE, Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. 1. Nay GIVE ME NOT THE BOOTS.

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  1630.  TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), Workes, ii. 145.

                  For where true courage roots,
The proverb says, ‘ONCE OVER SHOES, O’ER BOOTS.’

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  1653.  URQUHART, Rabelais, IV. xlv. [BOHN]. Whoever refused to do this should presently swing for it and DIE IN HIS SHOES.

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  d. 1734.  R. NORTH, The Life of Lord Guildford, ii. 96. He used to say George (his son) would DIE IN HIS SHOES.

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  1742.  BRANSTON [WALPOLE, Letter to Sir Horace Mann (1833), I. 180].

        At the end of the walk hung a rogue on a gibbet!
He beheld it and wept, for it caus’d him to muse on
Full many a Campbell, that DIED WITH HIS SHOES ON.

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  1816.  KENNET, Glossary, 32. ‘A country proverb.’

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  1840.  R. H. BARHAM, The Ingoldsby Legends (The Execution).

        And there is Sir Carnaby Jenks, of the Blues,
All come to see a man ‘DIE IN HIS SHOES!’

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  1865.  M. E. BRADDON, Sir Jasper’s Tenant, xxvii., 282. I’ll stick to you LIKE OLD BOOTS.

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  1874.  The Saturday Review, Jan., 55. An Oxford man, nay even a Balliol man … introduced in the story a pleasing change by such a phrase as jawing away LIKE OLD BOOTS.

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