pattens

Noun

patten (plural pattens)

1. 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...
2. (historical) 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
3. (obsolete) 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
4. (UK, dialectal) An ice skate.
5. (historical) An iron hoop attached to a person's boot in cases of hip-joint disease.
6. The base of a pillar.

See all 10 meanings of patten