gum boot
- noun
- /ɡʌm buːt/
- Australian
:
bota de goma
- After the heavy rain, he put on his gum boots before stepping outside to avoid soaking his shoes.
Examples
-
She wore her gum boots to the farm to keep her feet dry in the muddy fields.
-
Anyway, there are trees down everywhere, and the muck is tugging at my gum boots like a greedy sucking mouth, a mouth that's going to pull me all the way down eventually, but not yet.
Fiction book (2001) -
- Watch you don't get sheep shit all over your new gum boots you, Jacko.
-
Sebastian, who by this time has already wolfed down the Danish, tugs insistently at the gum boots.
Academic text (1995) -
P.S. I don't like photos of brides jumping in the air, record cover type photos, wearing gum boots, and very bizarre poses.
Blog text (25) -
The news showed treasure seekers with gum boots tracking mud all over the city, "a mud as foul-smelling as the ancient crimes they unearth daily," said BBC.
Fiction book (1993) -
The parking lot is flooded, two feet of gently swirling shit-colored water, and there go my cowboy boots—which I had to wear for vanity's sake, when the gum boots would have done just as well.
Fiction book (2001) -
The children splashed in the puddles while wearing bright yellow gum boots to keep their feet dry.
Synonyms
574
1.0
A strong shoe that covers the foot and lower leg
6
1.0
A waterproof rubber shoe worn to keep feet and lower legs dry when walking in water or mud
1
3.2
A waterproof boot that covers the lower leg and keeps feet dry in mud
1
3.9
A very high waterproof boot that reaches the hip for fishing or wading in water
1
2.5
A rubber boot worn to keep your feet dry in rain or mud
How Waterproof
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is compositionally material + object (gum + boot), so a learner who knows 'gum' as meaning a rubber-like material will readily infer 'a boot made of gum/rubber'. However, many B1 learners know 'gum' mainly as chewing/sticky gum and may not map it to 'rubber' or to a waterproof boot, and the term is regionally specific, so the relation is only partially predictable without exposure.
Etymology
Gum boot comes from the old word gum for rubber and boot for a tall shoe; these were tall boots made of rubber so they were 'waterproof' and 'kept feet dry'. That's why today gum boot means a tall rubber boot worn to stay dry in wet or muddy places.