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.
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
The patten now supports each frugal dame, Which from the blue-eyed Patty takes the name.
From Memoir of Jane Austen by Austen-Leigh, James Edward
Zounds, I think he has a patten to take up all the shields ith countrey.
From A Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 3 by Bullen, A. H. (Arthur Henry)
On Christmas Eve she put her little wooden patten on the hearth before the fire, and went to sleep to dream of Saint Nicholas.
From Good Stories for Holidays by Olcott, Frances Jenkins
Closing her eyes as she made this remark, in the acuteness of her commiseration for Betsey's patients, she forgot to open them again until she dropped a patten.
From Martin Chuzzlewit by Dickens, Charles
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.
