patten
UK/ˈpat(ə)n/US/ˈpæt(ə)n/
patten noun: any of various types of footwear with thick soles, often used to elevate the foot, especially wooden clogs. Also the obsolete form of paten.
Noun
patten (plural pattens)
- Any of various types of footwear with thick soles, often used to elevate the foot, especially wooden clogs.
- I went and told part of the excise money till twelve o’clock, and then called on my wife and took her to Mr. Pierces, she in the way being exceedingly troubled with a pair of new pattens, and I vexed to go so slow, it being late.1660 February 2 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “January 24th, 1659–1660”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume...
- Tom Freckle, the smith's son, was the next victim to her rage. He was an ingenious workman, and made excellent pattens; nay, the very patten with which he was knocked down was his own workmanship.1749, Henry Fielding, chapter VIII, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book IV
- One of various wooden attachments used to lift a shoe above wet or muddy ground.
- They presented the most extraordinary and comic aspect imaginable, with their shaven heads and long beard; (the heads of all Mussulmen are shaved quite bare, with the exception of a tuft on the very top, which is left for the angel of the tomb on the day of judgment, say they, to grasp and carry...1838, Charles Greenstreet Addison, Damascus and Palmyra: A Journey to the East - Volume 2, page 64
- Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the yard—Mrs. Peerybingle filled the kettle at the water-butt.1845, Charles Dickens, The Cricket on the Hearth
- A circular wooden plank attached to a horse's foot to prevent it from sinking into a bog while plowing.
- At and in the neighbourhood of North Meoks, near Ormskirk in Lancashire, there is a whole country of peat, and how deep this soil is God only knows, for the horses which plough thereon wear pattens to keep them from sinking to the bellies: here I was not long ago deluded, by my ignorance of the...1795, D. Walker, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Hertford, page 42
- Some trials have been made in Ireland to put pattens on bullocks instead of horses, for ploughing on bog.1814, The Fourth Report of the Commissioners (Ireland) 4 November, 1813 - 30 July, 1814, page 215
- An ice skate.
- An iron hoop attached to a person's boot in cases of hip-joint disease.
- The base of a pillar.
Verb
patten (third-person singular simple present pattens, present participle pattening, simple past and past participle pattened)
- To go about wearing pattens.
Proper noun capitalized: Patten
Patten (countable and uncountable, plural Pattens)
- A surname.
- An unincorporated community in Thomas County, Georgia, United States.
- A town, village, and census-designated place therein, in Penobscot County, Maine, United States.
Also used as
patten is also the obsolete form of paten.
Examples of patten in a sentence
- Nobody had appeared belonging to the house except a person in pattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; I don't know with what object, and I don't think she did.1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 4, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:
- I suppose that those who ramble beyond railways may yet come upon females underpinned with the useful and once indispensable pattens, but for a long time it has not been my lot to look upon a pair.1886, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, page 739:
- Pair of Woman's Pattens, c. 1700-80 A pair of woman's pattens, wooden soles riveted to wrought iron platforms with straps of brown leather lined with off-white wool.1998, Sharon Ann Burnston, Linda A Scurlock, Chester County Historical Society (West Chester, Pa.), Fitting & proper:
- The servant, who wasn't able to reach the flying coach, picked the patten [translating chianiello] up from the ground and brought it to the king, telling him what had happened.2007, Giambattista Basile, translated by Nancy L. Canepa, Tale of Tales, Penguin, page 60:
Forms of patten
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | pattens |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | pattens |
| present participle | pattening |
| past participle | pattened |
| past | pattened |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Pattens |
Origin of patten
From Middle English patyn, patin, pateyn, from Old French patin, from patte (“paw, hoof”), from Latin patta, of imitative origin.
Variant forms.
Words formed from patten
Questions about patten
- What does patten mean?
- Patten means any of various types of footwear with thick soles, often used to elevate the foot, especially wooden clogs.
- How do you use patten in a sentence?
- Nobody had appeared belonging to the house except a person in pattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; I don't know with what object, and I don't think she did.
- What part of speech is patten?
- Patten can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce patten?
- Patten is pronounced /ˈpat(ə)n/ (UK).
- What is the plural of patten?
- The plural of patten is pattens.
Words near patten in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: patten (page history and authors); Patten (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “patten.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/patten. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.