aglet
Americannoun
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aglets
plural
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a metal or plastic tag or sheath at the end of a lace used for tying, as of a shoelace.
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(in the 16th and 17th centuries) an ornament at the end of a point or other ribbon used to secure a garment.
noun
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a metal sheath or tag at the end of a shoelace, ribbon, etc
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a variant spelling of aiguillette
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any ornamental pendant
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of aglet
1400–50; late Middle English < Middle French aiguillette, equivalent to aiguille needle ( see aiguille) + -ette -et
Explanation
The little plastic tip at the end of your shoelace is called an aglet. If the aglets wear off, it can be hard to lace up your old basketball sneakers. There are two ways to spell this very specific thing, the plastic or metal shoelace tip that makes it fit more easily through the eyelets in your shoes: aglet and aiglet. Sometimes the aglet makes your life easier, and in other cases, it's just for decoration. The Middle French root is aiguillette, a diminutive of aiguille, "needle," from the Latin acus, which also means "needle," by way of its own diminutive, the Late Latin acucula.
Vocabulary lists containing aglet
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.
See Examples For:
Recognizable by a subtle sparkly strip hidden inside a collar or on an aglet at the end of a drawstring cord, Cucinelli’s luxury clothing brand employs a muted palette of tans and grays.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
"Think of these proteins as the plastic aglet that coats the ends of chromosomes to protect them from degradation and preserve their integrity," Nandakumar said.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 8, 2024
The ends of your shoelace are coated with a hard plastic shell called an aglet, which protects the lace from unraveling.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 8, 2024
Well, that’s a word I didn’t know: aglet.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 12, 2023
A point or tag at the end of a fringe or lace; an aglet.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary by Noah Webster
Finish off your sneaker with your choice of laces, varnish, and even the aglets, the metal pieces at the end of the laces.
From Salon ● Oct. 8, 2022
Some of the gaps were on telomeres, the caps at the ends of chromosomes that have often been compared to the aglets that protect the ends of shoelaces.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 31, 2022
Copper tubes called aglets were used in the 16th century to prevent wool laces from unraveling.
From National Geographic ● Aug. 7, 2015
Dr. Ronald DePinho was interested in telomeres, structures that cap the tips of chromosomes like aglets do the end of shoelaces.
From Newsweek ● Mar. 5, 2015
Pretending to be the Old Hermit of the Szythian Mountains, a man with missing teeth exclaimed over the exquisite footwear of his neighbors and fluttered his fingers along their buckles and aglets.
From "The Reader" by Traci Chee
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.
