Word of the Day

: October 18, 2006

chaussure

noun shoh-SEWR

What It Means

: footgear 2 plural : shoes

chaussure in Context

"'I delight in Hessian boots,' said Rebecca. Jos Sedley, who admired his own legs prodigiously, and always wore this ornamental chaussure, was extremely pleased at this remark. . .." (William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair)

Did You Know?

What could shoes possibly have in common with a food item made of pizza dough stuffed with cheese and other fillings? Etymologically, quite a bit. Retrace the footprints of both "chaussure" and "calzone" (a word that, like the tasty turnover itself, comes from Italy) and you'll arrive at the Latin word "calceus," meaning "shoe." "Calzone" is the singular of "calzoni," which means "pants" (someone must have seen a similarity between the food and the clothing item). "Calzoni" in turn comes from "calza," which means "stocking" and descends ultimately from the Latin "calceus." "Chaussure" made its way to English via Anglo-French rather than Italian (and goes back to an Old French verb meaning "to put on footwear"), but it too can be traced to "calceus."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.