▪ I. patten, n.
(ˈpæt(ə)n)
Forms: 4 patayn, 4–7 -en, 5 -eyne, 5–6 -yn, -an, 6 -in, -ent, 6–9 -ine, 9 Sc. paton, 6– patten (also 6 pattyn, 6–8 -in, 7 -ent, -ane).
[ME. a. F. patin (13th c. in Littré), in med.L. patinus (14th c. in Du Cange), It. pattino ‘wooden pattin or choppin’ (Florio 1611); origin uncertain; perh. a derivative of patte paw.]
1. a. A name applied at different periods to various kinds of foot-gear, either to such as the feet were slipped into without fastening, to wooden shoes or clogs, or to the thick-soled shoes, ‘chopins’, or ‘corks’, formerly worn by women to heighten their stature. Still sometimes applied to the thick-soled or wooden shoes of the Chinese or other foreign peoples; but now, in Great Britain and America, only in sense b.
| 1390 in Fabric Rolls York Minster (Surtees) 243 Omnes ministri Ecclesiæ..utuntur in Ecclesia et in processione patens et clogges contra honestatem Ecclesiæ. 1397 in Rogers Agric. & Prices II. 575/4, 2 pr: patayns {at} /4. 1440 Promp. Parv. 385/2 Pateyne, fote vp berynge (pateyne of tymbyre, k. or yron, to walke with, p.), calopodium, ferripodium. 1473 Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot. I. 29 To Caldwele of hire chalmire, to pay for patynis and corkis..xij s. 1480 Wardr. Acc. Edw. IV (1830) 119, ij pair patyns of leder, price the pair xij d. 1522 More De Quat. Noviss. Wks. 94/1 Wretches y{supt} scant can crepe for age..walk pit pat vpon a paire of patens. 1530 Palsgr. 252/2 Paten for a fote, galoche. c 1530 Crt. Love 1087 See, so she goth on patens faire and fete. 1553 Becon Reliques of Rome (1563) 69 b, Some go on treen shoes or Pattyns. 1565–73 Cooper Thesaurus s.v. Crepida, Patents or shooes hauing little or no vpper leather, but a latchet. 1585 T. Washington tr. Nicholay's Voy. ii. vii. 37 b, Their hosen and pattins [of Sciote ladies] are of colour white. 1611 Cotgr., Galoche, a woodden Shooe, or Patten, made all of a peece, without any latchet, or ty of leather, and worne by the poore clowne in Winter. 1623 tr. Favine's Theat. Hon. ii. xiii. 224 The Romane Ladies doe yet weare their high Patines and Pantofles. 1654 tr. Martini's Conq. China 35 They [Chinese ladies] seldom were Shoes..; but they often use fair Pattins, which they make three Fingers high. 1698 J. Crull Muscovy 80 A Kind of Shooes or Pattins, made of Bark of Trees. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. II. 621 Without doors they use a kind of wooden patten, neatly ornamented with shells. 1872 G. W. Curtis Howadji in Syria iii. iv. 308 (Funk) They all walk upon pattens four or five inches high, of ebony inlaid with pearl. |
b. spec. A kind of overshoe or sandal worn to raise the ordinary shoes out of mud or wet; consisting, since 17th c., of a wooden sole secured to the foot by a leather loop passing over the instep, and mounted on an iron oval ring, or similar device, by which the wearer is raised an inch or two from the ground.
| 1575 G. Harvey Letter-bk. (Camden) 153 He was fajnt to cum on pattins, bycause of y⊇ great wett. 1594 Greene & Lodge Looking Glasse G.'s Wks. (Rtldg.) 133 A womans eyes are like a pair of pattens, fit to save shoe-leather in summer, and to keep away the cold in winter. 1651 Cleveland Poems 55 When night-wandring Witches put on their pattins. 1659–60 Pepys Diary 24 Jan., My wife..in the way being exceedingly troubled with a pair of new pattens, and I vexed to go so slow. 1688 R. Holme Armoury iii. 14/2 Pattanes are Irons to be tied under shooes, to keep out of the Dirt. 1714 Gay Trivia i. 212 Good housewives..Safe thro' the Wet on clinking Pattens tread. a 1839 Praed Poems (1864) I. 84 She tramps it in her pattens. 1894 Hall Caine Manxman iii. v. 137 She heard the clatter of pattens in the room below. |
c. to run on pattens (said fig. of the tongue): to make a great clatter.
| a 1553 Udall Royster D. i. iii. (Arb.) 20 Yet your tongue can renne on patins as well as mine. 1553 T. Wilson Rhet. 118 Some talkes as thoughe their tongue went of patyns. 1575 Gamm. Gurton ii. iv. in Hazl. Dodsley III. 209 The tongue it went on patins, by him that Judas sold! 16.. Taming of Shrew, But still her tongue on pattens ran. |
2. A round plate of wood fastened under the hoof of a horse to prevent it from sinking in boggy ground. Cf. patten-shoe.
| 1815 Dickson Agric. Lancash. 183 Horse-Pattens..are used for the hind feet of horses in first breaking up and cultivating the more soft moss lands in this country. 1834 Brit. Husb. I. 165 Pattens are not necessary for the fore feet of horses, but are often required for the hind feet, more especially when the moss is first ploughed. |
3. Applied to snow-shoes, used by northern races in winter. [So F. patin.]
| 1555 Eden Decades 298 In the wynter they [of Permia] iorney in Artach as they doo in many places of Russia. Artach are certeyne longe patentes of woodde of almost syxe handfuls in length, whiche they make faste to theyr fiete with latchettes. 1875 Wonders Phys. World ii. iii. 267 Furnished with wooden pattens such as the Lapps use. |
4. A skate. (local or alien.) [= F. patin.]
| 1617 Moryson Itin. iii. 94 They [waters frozen over] will beare some hundreths of young men and women, sliding vpon them with pattins, according to their custome. 1726 Leoni Alberti's Archit. II. 12/2 A sort of wooden pattens with a very fine thin bottom of steel, in which..they slip over the ice with so much swiftness. 1754–5 tr. Negotiations Comte d'Avaux III. 132 With iron pattins on her feet. 1887 Fenn Dick o' the Fenns (1888) 17 We shall get no ice for our pattens. 1893 Baring-Gould Cheap Jack. Z. I. xii. 184 Skates are termed patines in the Fens. |
5. In various architectural uses = base or foot: the base of a column; the sole for the foundation of a wall: a bottom plate or sill. [So F. patin.]
| [1449 in Blore Monum. Rem. xxiii. (1826) 17 (Contract Monumt. R. Beauchamp) Reredoses of timber, with patands of timber, and a crest of fine entail.] 1643 Boston Rec. (1877) II. 74 To give notice to all men that have set up pattens, and shores against their fences in the common streets to the annoyance of the wayes. 1706 Phillips, Patten or Pattin,..also that part of a Pillar, on which the Base is set. [1845 Parker Gloss. Archit., Patand, the bottom plate or sill of a partition or screen. (See quot. 1449.)] |
6. attrib. and Comb., as patten-nail, patten-ring, patten-sandal, patten-string; patten-shoe, a shoe designed for a lame horse: see quot. 1819. Also patten-maker.
| 1545 Rates of Customs c iij, *Patten nayles the some iis. |
| 1681 Lond. Gaz. No. 1638/4 Stolen.., a dark Brown Nag,..marked on the near Shoulder with a *Paten-Ring. 1725 Ibid. No. 6388/7 Samuel Gower, late of Birmingham, Pattin-Ring-maker. 1763 Brit. Mag. IV. 547 Of patten⁓rings I mark the track along. |
| 1639 T. de Grey Compl. Horsem. 306 Putting a *patten-shooe upon the contrary foot. 1754 Bartlet Farriery 224 The..setting on a patten shoe, to bring the lame shoulder on a stretch, is a most preposterous practice. 1819 Pantologia, Patten-shoe,..a horse-shoe so called, under which is soldered a sort of half⁓ball of iron, hollow within..a patten-shoe being only necessary in old lamenesses, where the muscles have been a long while contracted. 1957 R. Lister Decorative Wrought Ironwork 231 Patten shoe, in farriery, a shoe used for a hip-shot horse. Its underside is forged into a hollow hemisphere. 1963 Times 25 Feb. 1/7 Sometimes it was necessary to rest a leg that was strained, so a Patten shoe was obtained which had a raised heel to relax the back tendon of the leg while the horse was resting after muscular injury. |
| 1849 C. Brontë Shirley II. iii. 89 Hardly worthy to tie her *patten-strings. |
▪ II. patten, v.
(ˈpæt(ə)n)
[f. prec. n. Cf. F. patiner to skate (1732 in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. intr. To walk or go about on pattens.
| 1852 Dickens Bleak Ho. xxvii, These household cares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the back yard. |
2. To skate. local.
| 1850 Kingsley Alt. Locke xii, He..questioned me about the way ‘Lunnon folks’ lived, and whether they got any shooting or ‘pattening’—whereby I found he meant skating. |
▪ III. patten
obs. f. paten, patent, pattern.