startup, n.1 Obs. exc. dial. and Hist.
(ˈstɑːtəp)
Also 6 startop(p)e, -uppe, stertup, 6–7 startop. Also pl. 6 stertops, stert-, startuppes, styrtoppes, stertyppes.
[f. vbl. phr. start up (see start v. 13); as if ‘a shoe that starts up to the middle of the leg’.]
Originally, a kind of ‘high-low’ or boot, worn by rustics; in later use, a kind of gaiter or legging. Chiefly in pl.
| 1517 Test. Ebor. (Surtees) V. 83, j par sotularium quæ dicuntur stertuppes. 1530 Palsgr. 251/1 Payre of startoppes, hovssettes. 1551–2 Act 5 & 6 Edw. VI c. 15 §5 Any Shoes, Boots, Buskyns, Styrtoppes or Slippers. 1558 in Feuillerat Revels Q. Eliz. (1908) 35 Imployed into edging of Stertyppes for the Patriarkes. 1572 Ibid. 159, viii payer of white startops of cloth of sylver. 1573 Baret Alv. S 328 A high shooe of rawe leather called a stertvp, pero. 1574 Withals' Dict. 54 b, In a maner all husbande men doe weare stertups. 1591 Greene Farew. Follie Wks. (Grosart) IX. 265 His pompes were a little too heauie, being trimmed start-vps made of a paire of boote legges. 1600 Pory Leo's Africa iii. 156 The streetes are so mirie, that you cannot walk in them without startups. c 1605 Drayton Pastorals, Ecl. ix. 9 (1619) 467 When not a Shepheard any thing that could, But greaz'd his start-ups black as Autumns Sloe. 1608 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. iv. iv. Decay 114 Her neat, fit, Startups of green Velvet bee, Flourisht with silver. a 1626 Moryson Itin. iv. (1903) 451 [Italian] Gentlewemen..weare high Startups or Pantofills of wood, so as they cannot goe without helpe. 1667 Cotton Scarron. iv. 124 Yet she made shift to stuff each start-up, And tie 'um to the rest on's Wardope. 1688 Holme Armory iv. vii. (Roxb.) 325/2 Star-tops or hose foulded downe belowe the knees. 1777 Horæ Subsec. [MS., Devon dialect] 411 (E.D.D.) Start-ups, a kind of button'd buskins. Not high shoes as Littleton represents them. 1821 Scott Kenilw. xxiv, This was a stupid lout,..with..his hose about his heels, and huge startups upon his feet. 1836 R. Furness Astrologer i. Wks. (1858) 137 Thor's knitted cap, suspended on a wire, And hoddin start-ups warm'd above the fire. 1854 A. E. Baker Northampt. Gloss., Start-ups, short gaiters: long ones being styled leggings. |