wing tip
- noun
- /wɪŋ tɪp/
- "You aren't exactly dressed for this winter weather," Jory said, pointing to his wing-tip shoes.
- black wing tips
- shiny wing tips
- leather wing tips
Someday they'll put an athletic bottom on the wing tip shoe and I shall own it.
- Someday they'll put an athletic bottom on the wing tip shoe and I shall own it.
Examples
-
Her wing tips were made of polished leather and had a classic design.
-
I have some wing tips here somewhere.
-
I had one suit and 21 pairs of wing tips.
-
I removed my wing tips and handed them over.
Fiction book (2000) -
Oh, I shoulda worn my special occasion wing tips today.
-
The shine man kneels before my father's wing tips.
Fiction book (1996) -
Someday they'll put an athletic bottom on the wing tip shoe and I shall own it.
-
When Alma came downstairs, dressed and ready to go, Merritt was just lacing up his black wing-tips.
Fiction book (1993) -
I was so happy with my wing tips that I didn't even flinch when Dr. Sol called me with something he'd forgotten to mention.
Fiction book (2000) -
He wore a stylish pair of wing tips to the formal event.
Synonyms
A dress shoe with a pointed toe cap shaped like wings and small holes
Surface Forms
Morphology
wing + tip
The compound is partly compositional: 'wing' + 'tip' evokes a wing-shaped or pointed end, and the shoe name reflects a decorative, wing-like toe cap. However the leap from that image to a specific type of dress shoe is a specialized, conventionalized sense that many B1 learners who only know the literal words would not predict without exposure, so the relation is only partly transparent.
Etymology
Wing tip comes from the look of the shoe's front: the sewn toe has pointed parts that look like a small wing at the tip of the shoe, often making a 'W' shape. So, the name came to mean this style of shoe with a pointed toe and wing-like decoration.