DCHP-1 Online

snowshoe ((n.))

• 1 n. one of a pair of webbed frames for walking on top of deep snow. [See picture at snowshoe].

  See also: raquette  shoe ((n.))  (def. 1)  web  racket  

  • 1680  (1945)  Mar. Letton to Deliver 4 dressed Mouse skins to Thos. Garland to make Snowe Shooes.
  • 1760  The texture of the raquette or snow-shoe, consists of straps of leather about two lines in breadth, bordered with some light wood hardened in the fire.
  • 1872  The moose, being started from his yard, is followed by the men on snow shoes, sometimes accompanied by dogs, who head the animal and bring him to bay.
  • 1966  [He] went out on his snowshoes to check some sets he had made for rabbits . . . on the south shore of Lake Athabasca.

• 2 n. a circular snowshoe fitted to horses that have to work in snow. [See picture at snowshoe.]

  See also: horse snowshoe  

  • 1964  [Caption] When the snowshoe comes loose, intelligent horses stop until it is adjusted

• 3 n. a type of warm knee-high boot worn by the Eskimos and Indians of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. [See picture at mukluk.]

  See also: mukluk  

  • 1960  "We call these snow shoes but white people call them mukliks," he said.