Clogmaker

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Someone who crafts clogs, the wooden-soled footwear once common among workers in parts of Europe
2. A craftsperson who carves and assembles shoes with wooden soles, traditionally worn by labourers and farmers
3. One who makes clogs, footwear with thick wooden bases, by shaping timber and fitting it with leather uppers

Etymology: "Clogmaker" is a plain compound, built from "clog" and "maker", and its history is as straightforward as its parts suggest. A clog, in the sense that matters here, is a shoe with a sturdy wooden sole, the kind of footwear that protected feet from mud, damp and hard work. The "maker" element is the ordinary English word for one who makes something, so a clogmaker is simply a person who makes clogs. The compound is recorded in Middle English, the English of roughly the 12th to 15th centuries, which shows it was already in use then, when wooden-soled footwear was a common everyday item. The word has stayed close to its original literal meaning, describing a craftsman who shaped wooden soles and fitted them with uppers, and it has seen little change beyond that.

Synonyms: clogger