any of various kinds of footwear, as a wooden shoe, a shoe with a wooden sole, a chopine, etc., to protect the feet from mud or wetness.
a separate sole attached to a shoe or boot for this purpose.
Building Trades. any stand or support, especially one of a number resting on unbroken ground as a substitute for a foundation.
1350–1400; Middle English paten < Middle French patin wooden shoe, perhaps derivative of pate paw
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Then a vast crowd of worshipers surrounded me, a priest before the altar raised the pyx and the patten in his hands.
From Dreams and Dream Stories by Kingsford, Anna Bonus
Ambulant Treatment.—When the patient is able to use crutches, the affected limb is prevented from touching the ground by fixing a patten on the sole of the boot on the sound side.
From Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. by Miles, Alexander
Smaly jumped off the patten on which he had remained perched during the eclipse of the Confectioner.
From The City Curious by Bosschère, Jean de
A similar contrivance, with the addition of an iron ring, leather strap and toe-cap, is still sometimes worn by farm servants, and is called a patten.
From The Evolution of Fashion by Gardiner, Florence Mary
It lay in the wooden patten, looking up at her with its two bright eyes, and chirping contentedly as she stroked its soft feathers.
From Good Stories for Holidays by Olcott, Frances Jenkins
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.
