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bootblack

[ boot-blak ]

noun

  1. a person who shines shoes and boots boot boots for a living.


bootblack

/ ˈbuːtˌblæk /

noun

  1. another word for shoeblack
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Word History and Origins

Origin of bootblack1

An Americanism dating back to 1810–20; boot 1 + black
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Example Sentences

We don’t think of the thousand other bootblacks who will not meet their benefactors, boys whom the text dismisses as ruffians or ne’er-do-wells or simply never acknowledges at all.

Some bootblacks sat together under a tree talking to a soldier.

His pleasure in the attentions of the bootblack’s whisk reflected a consciousness about clothes unusual in a small-town man.

He forced himself to remember the dullest things he knew—bootblack, an application form, a wet towel on his bedroom floor.

At the corner two bootblacks caught me, one on either side, shrill and raucous, like blackbirds.

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