shoe-leather
Syllables: shoe-lea·therUK/ˈʃuːˌlɛðə/US/ˈʃuːˌlɛðɚ/
shoe-leather noun: leather that is used to make shoes.
Noun
shoe-leather (countable and uncountable, plural shoe-leathers)
- Leather that is used to make shoes.
- Outside of patent leathers and specialties, I know of no other types of shoe leathers which are commanding replacement costs today.1922, Boot and Shoe Recorder: The Magazine of Fashion Footwear, volume 81, Philadelphia, Pa.: King Publications (a subsidiary of Chilton Company), →OCLC, page 86
- Naturally, this aristocrat of shoe leathers costs more than ordinary leather – and, for the past two years, it has been all but unobtainable in this country.1942 October 12, “Is there a Bagpipe Player in the Audience? [Regal Shoes advertisement]”, in LIFE, volume 13, number 15, Chicago, Ill.: Time Inc., →OCLC, page 136
- Leather from which shoes are made that is worn out through walking.
- In old times, if a Coniston peasant had any business at Ulverstone, he walked to Ulverstone; spent nothing but shoe-leather on the road, drank at the streams, and if he spent a couple of batz when he got to Ulverstone, "it was the end of the world." But now, he would never think of doing such a...1874 June 6, John Ruskin, “Letter XLIV”, in Fors Clavigera. Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain, volume IV, Orpington, Kent: George Allen, →OCLC, pages 166–167
- Save on shoe leather [letter title] […] Pounding the sidewalks can seriously wear you out.2011 August 13, Peter Atkinson, “Save on shoe leather [letter]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Travel), archived from the original on 17 Sep 2011, page T13
- The sweat of one's brow; effort; investigatory effort.
- They expended a lot of shoe-leather in hunting down every lead.
- Another way in which the laity expressed their yearning to break through the barrier separating them from the divine was to journey in pilgrimage to sacred places or shrines, so that they might offer their prayers in an especially powerful and effective setting. This was a devotion in which a...2003, Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History, Penguin, →ISBN, page 18
- Tough meat, especially cheap meat.
- The school certainly wasn't breaking the bank by feeding us — when it wasn't gruel it was shoe-leather.
Adjective
shoe-leather (not comparable)
- Basic, old-fashioned or traditional; specifically (journalism) shoe-leather journalism or shoe-leather reporting: journalism involving walking from place to place observing things and speaking to people, rather than sitting indoors at a desk.
- When we set out to produce the site full time, everything we did went on the site, but the reporting for the site hasn't changed. I don't think it ever will. It's basic shoe leather reporting, hunting down sources and documents and confirming authenticity.2008 April 23, Mark Glaser, “Public Documents + Shoe Leather Reporting = The Smoking Gun's Staying Power”, in Mediashift, Public Broadcasting Service, archived from the original on 13 Nov 2012
- The book, wrought from old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting of a type that's disappearing faster than nonfranchised lunch counters on Main Street, isn't chiefly a tale of drugs and crime, of dysfunction and despair, but a recession-era tragedy scaled for an "Our Town," Thornton Wilder stage and...2009 July 5, Walter Kirn, “Wasted Land”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 15 Nov 2014
shoe-leather meaning in Tamil
shoe-leather in Tamil
- புதைமிதித் தோல்
Forms of shoe-leather
| plural | shoe-leathers |
|---|---|
| alternative form | shoe leather |
| alternative form | shoeleather |
Origin of shoe-leather
From shoe + leather.
Words formed from shoe-leather
Questions about shoe-leather
- What does shoe-leather mean?
- Shoe-leather means leather that is used to make shoes.
- What is shoe-leather in Tamil?
- Shoe-leather in Tamil is புதைமிதித் தோல். See Shoe-leather meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is shoe-leather?
- Shoe-leather can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce shoe-leather?
- Shoe-leather is pronounced /ˈʃuːˌlɛðə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of shoe-leather?
- The plural of shoe-leather is shoe-leathers.
Words near shoe-leather in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shoe-leather (page history and authors); shoe-leather (Tamil Wiktionary) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-shoe-leather.ogg.
Cite this entry: “shoe-leather.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shoe-leather. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.