DCHP-2
toe rubber rubber, toe-rubber DCHP-2 (November 2016)
n. — usually plural, dated, Clothing
a low rubber overshoe (see Images 1 and 2).
Type: 2. Preservation — OED-3 marks toe rubber as "N. Amer." (see OED-3, s.v. "toe rubber"), with the earliest quotation from 1948. "Rubber" in this sense is marked in OED-3 as "Orig. US", with the earliest quotation from 1834 (see OED-3, s.v. "rubber" (14.a)). DARE lists as its earliest quotation an 1889 newspaper source. It appears that the term has since been preserved in Canada (Type 2) and become most prevalent in that country (see Chart 1).
See also COD-2, s.v. "toe rubber", which is marked "Cdn".Images:
Image 1: A pair of toe rubbers. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Photo: Peregrinus
Image 2: An advertisment for toe rubbers from the Toronto Star, 5 Jan. 1915
Image 1: Internet Domain Search, 21 Jan. 2014