sabot

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The Word of the Day for June 3 is: 

sabot   \sa-BOH\   noun 
     1 *a : a wooden shoe worn in various European countries  b (1) : a strap 
across the instep in a shoe especially of the sandal type (2) : a shoe having a 
sabot strap
     2 : a thrust-transmitting carrier that positions a missile in a gun barrel 
or launching tube and that prevents the escape of gas ahead of the missile
     3 : a dealing box designed to hold several decks of playing cards

Example sentence: 
     "All her kind, at least in the countryside, wore... sabots, well past the 
century's end." (Eugen Weber, France, _Fin de Siecle_) 

Did you know?
     The term "sabot" may have first been introduced into English in a 1607 
translation from French: "Wooden shoes," readers were informed, are "properly 
called sabots." The gun-related sense appeared in the mid-1800s with the 
invention of a wooden gizmo that kept gun shells from shifting in the gun 
barrel. Apparently, someone thought the device resembled a wooden shoe and 
named it "sabot" (with later generations of this device carrying on the name). 
Another kind of French sabot -- a metal "shoe" used to secure rails to railway 
ties -- is said to be the origin of the word "sabotage," from workers 
destroying the sabots during a French railway strike in the early 1900s. The 
word "sabot" is probably related to "savate," a Middle French word for an old 
shoe. 

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence. 






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