Denver Chiefly N. Amer.
(ˈdɛnvə(r))
The name of the city of Denver, Colorado, used attrib. as Denver boot, shoe, a kind of wheel clamp used to immobilize an illegally parked vehicle (app. first used in Denver); cf. boot n.3 6 g.
| 1967 Daily Tel. 27 Oct. 22/3 An automatic wheel-locking device, called the Denver Shoe, which is to be used by police in Paris to ‘arrest’ vehicles left in streets where parking is not allowed. 1974 Ottawa Citizen 8 Oct. 45/1 The notice..said a large locking device had been attached to one of my wheels... This locking contraption is called a Denver Boot. 1977 U.S. News & World Rep. 21 Mar. 80/1 The [wheel] locks are called ‘Denver boots’, after the city that introduced them in 1949. 1983 Daily Tel. 14 July 19/1 In the first eight weeks 4,358 vehicles were clamped with the Denver shoe. |