Word of the Week (March 22-28): vamp

Word of the Week: March 22 - 28

vamp

Definition according to the Dictionary of Newfoundland English:

vamp n Cp OED ~ sb1 1 'part of hose or stockings which covers foot and ankle' now dial (1225-); EDD sb1 1 Co for sense 1.

1 A short, thick woollen oversock, worn in boots to prevent chafing or around the house as a slipper.

[1811] 1818 BUCHAN 4 Snow shoes, buskins, vamps, cuffs.

1884 STEARNS 166 [Vamps] are simply cloth-like slippers, and much resemble a stocking cut off just above the instep with the edges bound or sewed over and over with worsted, and a central flap an inch or two long from the middle of the front edge, in which is made a loop and by which the pair are looped and fastened, the one to the other, when they are hung up to dry.

[1886] LLOYD 55 [Sealskin boots and moccasins] are worn with two pair of thick swanskin vamps.

1937 DEVINE 55 ~s. Outer stockings. T 210-65 You'd make [the boots] a couple of sizes too large for your foot, and then you'd get on some vamps. Sometimes they'd have skin vamp, and then a woollen one inside, beside the sock.

1975 GUY 60 Vamps came next. Hand-knit from the self-same material these socks came to just above the knobs of the ankles and were worn over the first two sets of hose.

1977 RUSSELL 68 I was sittin' by myself in the kitchen this night about nine o'clock, with my boots off, a pair of woolen vamps hauled on over my socks, and with my feet up on the pan of the stove smokin' my pipe. 2 The bottom of a sock.

1872 HOWLEY MS Reminiscences 1 He stood 6 feet 4 inches in his stocking vamps.

1955 ENGLISH 37 ~ The sole of a stocking.

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