bootblack
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of bootblack
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Here’s what I wrote about Tony — “equal parts bootblack and Benihana chef” — in 2004, as I watched him shine the boots of a customer named Eric Mulmar at Nick’s:
From Washington Post • Jun. 15, 2022
The 1868 bildungsroman “Ragged Dick,” the most popular of Alger’s books in his day, follows a 14-year-old bootblack as he makes his way in New York.
From New York Times • Apr. 5, 2022
His action mirrored what’s happening on the bootblack stand in the corner.
From Slate • Apr. 17, 2019
The public no longer associated it primarily with working-class revelry, unwashed vendors, and vagrant street children such as Dick, the dirt-streaked bootblack, in Horatio Alger’s novel Ragged Dick.
From Salon • Sep. 7, 2013
The bootblack knelt down beside the one at work and started on Mike's free shoe that shone already in the electric light.
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
