Meaning & use
wooden shoe
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
A shoe carved from a single block of wood, traditionally worn in parts of Europe.
Grammar: Countable: one wooden shoe, two wooden shoes.
Patterns
- a pair of wooden shoes
- wear wooden shoes
In the Netherlands, many farmers once wore wooden shoes in the fields.
She bought a pair of painted wooden shoes as a souvenir.
The museum displays traditional wooden shoes from several European countries.
Word forms
| plural | wooden shoes |
|---|
Common combinations
- pair of wooden shoes
- He carved a pair of wooden shoes for the festival.
- traditional wooden shoes
- The dancers wore traditional wooden shoes.
- wooden shoe maker
- The wooden shoe maker used hand tools to shape each clog.
Synonyms and how they differ
- clog
- Clog is a more general word for a shoe with a thick wooden sole; wooden shoe specifically means a shoe made entirely of wood.
Word family
Commonly confused: wooden shoe or klomp?
wooden shoe vs klomp
Klomp is the Dutch word for this type of shoe; in English, use 'wooden shoe' or 'clog'.
Practice
What is a wooden shoe traditionally made from?
Choose one answer.
A wooden shoe is carved from one block of wood, so 'a single block of wood' is correct. Leather, cloth, and rubber are materials for other kinds of shoes, not traditional wooden shoes.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “wooden shoe”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.