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Word of the Week (147): BRODEKIN (probability 9816), by David Sutton

A BRODEKIN (or BRODKIN) is an obsolete word for a BUSKIN, a type of thick-soled boot, much favoured by actors especially in Greek tragedy. Another name for the boot is COTHURN or COTHURNUS (the plural of the latter is COTHURNI), and this yields an adjective COTHURNAL.

Let's have a look at some other boots. A BLUCHER was a type of leather half-boot, named for the Marshal Blücher, the Prussian chap who turned up a bit late for Waterloo. A CRACOWE was a long-toed boot fashionable in the fourteenth century, taking its name from the Polish town. A CROWBOOT is an Inuit boot made of fur and leather. A MUCLUC, MUKLUK or MUCKLUCK is another type of Inuit boot made of sealskin, and a KAMIK is a knee-length sealskin boot.

FINNESKO (or FINNSKO or FINSKO) are reindeer-skin boots with the hair left on: these words are already plural so no -S. A LARRIGAN is a long boot made of oiled leather, worn by lumbermen etc. A JEMIMA is an elastic-sided boot.

SEABOOT and SNOWBOOT are fairly obvious. A BOTTINE is a small boot, especially a surgical boot worn to correct a deformity.

And there is just a faint possibility that you might get to play, as an extension from either of its component parts, WAFFLESTOMPER, a hiking boot with a lug sole.

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