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Shoeing-horn   Listen
noun
Shoeing-horn, Shoehorn  n.  
1.
A curved piece of polished horn, wood, or metal used to facilitate the entrance of the foot into a shoe.
2.
Figuratively:
(a)
Anything by which a transaction is facilitated; a medium; by way of contempt.
(b)
Anything which draws on or allures; an inducement. (Low)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Shoeing-horn" Quotes from Famous Books



... scorn. What matters it to us who is King of Spain? asks one adversary. As well ask, retorts Defoe, what it matters to us who is King of Ireland. All this talk about the Balance of Power, says another, is only "a shoeing-horn to draw on a standing army." We do not want an army; only let us make our fleet strong enough and we may defy the world; our militia is perfectly able to defend us against invasion. If our militia is so strong, is Defoe's reply, why should a standing-army make us fear for ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... summer, when I left the Tents of Kedar. I now reside about a mile hence. It is but a hundred yards off the high road, and if you would not object to step aside and suffer a rasher, or aught else, to be 'the shoeing-horn to draw on a cup of ale,' as our plain forefathers were wont wittily to say, why, I shall be very happy to show you my habitation. You will have a double welcome, from the circumstance of my having been absent from home for the last ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the nursery, my own family used to play at dentist with him, assigning to Excalibur the role of patient. Gas was administered with a bicycle pump, and a shoehorn and buttonhook were employed in place of the ordinary instruments of torture; but Excalibur did not mind. He lay on his back on the hearth rug, with the principal dentist sitting astride his ribs, as happy ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay


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