‖ sabot
(sabo)
[F. sabot (OF. in 13th c. {cced}abot, mod.Picard chabot) prob. related in some way to savate shoe, Pr. sabata: see sabaton.]
1. a. A wooden shoe made of a single piece of wood shaped and hollowed out to fit the foot.
| 1607 R. C[arew] tr. Estienne's World of Wonders 299 Woodden shoes properly called sabots. 1673 C. Hatton in H. Corr. (Camden) 118 A sabot having a great bracelet of beades passed through y⊇ heel. 1765 H. Walpole Let. to J. Chute 3 Oct., Two fellows were sweeping it [sc. the Dauphin's bedchamber] and dancing about in sabots to rub the floor. 1792 A. Young Trav. France 18 The ploughmen..have neither sabots nor feet to their stockings. 1846 Church Misc. Writ. (1891) I. 92 Captains in the imperial armies..resumed their sabots and baggy breeches. 1888 M. E. Braddon Fatal Three i. iv, Two boys in blouses and sabots. |
| attrib. 1800 Weems Washington viii. (1877) 62 The Sabot or wooden shoed nation, the French. |
b. A kind of shoe having a thick wooden sole and ‘uppers’ of coarse leather.
| 1840 Barham Ingol. Leg. Ser. i. Bagman's Dog, He'd a ‘dreadnought’ coat, and heavy sabots With thick wooden soles turn'd up at the toes. 1879 Beerbohm Patagonia iii. 43 [He] would now and then wear a pair of sabots made with the skin of the hind legs of the guanacho. |
2. Mil. a. A wooden disc attached to a spherical projectile by means of a copper rivet for the purpose of keeping it evenly in place in the bore of the piece when discharged.
b. A metal cup fixed by means of metal straps to a conical projectile, to cause it to ‘take’ the rifling of the gun.
| 1855 Norton in Mech. Mag. LXII. 88 Expanding self-cleansing sabot for rifle-shot. 1859 F. A. Griffiths Artill. Man. (ed. 8) 86 The ‘bottoms’ or ‘sabots’ of all naval shells are hollowed out. Ibid. 97 Wooden Bottoms, or Sabots. 1860 Tennent Story Guns (1864) 209 The shot, unprotected by a sabot, may have shifted its place. 1866 Cornh. Mag. Sept. 355 An egg-shaped bullet, its base embedded in a papier mâché sabot. 1868 Rep. to Govt. U.S. Munitions of War 63 The fulminate which is put in a card-board sabot next the charge. |
c. Any device fitted inside the muzzle of a gun to hold or support the projectile to be fired (as when they are of different calibres).
| 1950 Scott & Richardson Fin Stabilized Projectile Devel. for 3 inch/70 Gun (NAVORD Rep. 1537: AD 857–242) 3 Removal of the sabot by spin can be disregarded as the projectile acquires little, if any, spin in the smooth bore tube... The type of sabot developed by the Germans during World War II, and operating primarily by muzzle blast with the assistance of the air stream, is the simplest in design. 1954 K. W. Gatland Devel. Guided Missile (ed. 2) ii. 47 Models launched from guns in the new supersonic free-flight wind-tunnel are protected in the gun barrel by plastic ‘sabots’ which keep the models correctly aligned and act as pistons. 1957 E. Burgess Guided Weapons iv. 100 The models..which are being tested are launched through a smooth-bore gun by means of a discarding sabot. 1963 Dict. U.S. Mil. Terms (U.S. Dept. Defense) 188 Sabot, lightweight carrier in which a subcaliber projectile is centered to permit firing the projectile in the larger caliber weapon. The carrier fills the bore of the weapon from which the projectile is fired; it is normally discarded a short distance from the muzzle. 1975 I. V. Hogg German Artillery of World War Two 267 An enormous range of sabot shells was developed in Germany with the intention of either increasing the range of field guns or reducing the time of flight of anti-aircraft shells. |
3. Mech. The iron shoe or point of a pile (Knight
Dict. Mech. Suppl., 1884); an iron shoe used to protect the end of a file for working metal (
Cent. Dict. 1891); a cutting armature at the end of a tubular boring-rod.
| 1884 Public Opinion 3 Oct. 432 The system of sinking shafts..by means of hollow iron tubes with cutting sabots. |
4. A brace connected with the pedal of a harp and used for shortening the string.
5. (See
quot. 1966.)
| 1962 Internat. Art Treasures Exhib., Victoria & Albert Mus. 20/2 A Louis XV parquetry table à écrire..raised on cabriole legs with gilt bronze sabots. 1966 M. M. Pegler Dict. Interior Design (1967) 383 Sabots... Decorative metal coverings for the feet of wood furniture..appeared in the 18th century, and were made of bronze doré, bronze, brass, etc. 1980 Country Life 3 July 11/2 A ravishing writing desk... The cabriole legs are framed by moulded ormolu borders reaching down to pierced sabots. |
6. In baccarat and chemin de fer, a shoe: see
shoe n. 5.
| [1963 C. Graves None but the Rich 3 Baccarat, in fact, is chemin-de-fer played with a fixed bank, chemin-de-fer taking its name from the fact that the ‘shoe’ (in French, sabot), as the deal box is known, moves like a toy railway train round the table each time the dealer loses.] 1964 A. Wykes Gambling vii. 177 (caption) The sabot from which the ‘chemmy’ cards are dealt. 1966 P. O'Donnell Sabre-Tooth vi. 93 The sabot containing the six packs of cards, recently shuffled and stacked by the croupier. 1977 X. Fielding Money Spinner 162 Finally they are placed in the ‘shoe’ or sabot, from which the banker deals them one by one. |
Hence
ˈsaboted ppl. a., shod with sabots.
| 1862 Simeon in Macm. Mag. Mar. 421 The bloused and saboted driver. 1885 Pall Mall G. 28 Aug. 11/2 Colonies of greasy, sabotted Frenchmen. 1905 Daily Chron. 27 Mar. 4/5 His blue-bloused and sabotted gardeners. |