Word of the Day:
moccasin
What It Means
A traditional Native North American shoe, usually without a heel or sole, made of a piece of deerskin or other soft leather turned up at the edges which are either stitched together at the top of the shoe, or sewn to a vamp (a piece covering the top of the foot).
A modern shoe with either a low or no heel resembling a traditional Native American moccasin in that the leather forming the sides of the shoe is stitched at the top.
A light beige colour, like that of a moccasin.
Moccasin in Context
“The men's shoe, a classic, low-heeled moccasin, was called Model 175. A classier women's version soon followed.”
Did You Know?
From Powhatan makasin, mockasin, mawhcasuns (plural), from Proto-Algonquian *maxkeseni. The word is cognate with Massachusett mohkisson, mokussin, Mi'kmaq mksɨn, Munsee mahkusin, Ojibwe makizin. First appears c. 1612 in the writings of John Smith. It has been suggested that sense 4 (“North American snake”) may be derived from a different Native American word.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: moccasin (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “moccasin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/moccasin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
