shoeing-horn

Noun

shoeing-horn (plural shoeing-horns)

1. (dated) A shoehorn.
2. (obsolete) Anything that facilitates a transaction; that which smooths the way or greases the wheels.
3. (UK, obsolete, Elizabethan English) Anything that induces or "draws on" thirst.
   • ...some of "the general rules and inventions for drinking, as good as printed precepts or statutes by act of parliament, that go from drunkard to drunkard; as... to have some shoeing-horn to pull on your wine, as a rasher on the coals or a red herring..."
   • Shoeing-horns, sometimes called gloves, are also described by Bishop Hall in his "Mundus alter et idem." "Then sir, comes me up a service of shoeing-horns of all sorts; salt cakes, red herrings, anchovies, and gammon of bacon, and abundance of such pullers on." ... And yet a drawer-on too; i.e.an...1838, Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature
4. (obsolete) A young man encouraged by a woman as a hanger-on to encourage the advances of more desirable suitors.
   • Now you cannot but observe, that most of our fine young Ladies readily fall in with the Direction of the Graver sort, to retain in their Service, by some small Encouragement, as great a Number as they can of supernumerary and insignificant Fellows, which they use like whifflers, and commonly call...1712, Joseph Addison, The Spectator 14th November 1712