heeltap

English

Etymology

heel +‎ tap

Noun

heeltap (plural heeltaps)

1. A piece or wedge that raises the heel of a shoe.
2. (dated) A small amount of (especially alcoholic) drink remaining at the bottom of a glass.
   • 1815, Thomas Love Peacock, Headlong Hall:

     A heeltap! a heeltap! I never could bear it! So fill me a bumper, a bumper of Claret! Let the bottle pass freely, don't shirk it nor spare it, For a heeltap! a heeltap! I never could bear it.

   • 1894, Mark Twain, “Chapter 11”, in Pudd'nhead Wilson:

     "He's a good fellow, anyway, if he is a teetotaler!" "Drink his health!" "Give him a rouser, and no heeltaps!"

   • 1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC:

     We had the heeltaps of bottles as well, so that we often drank too much—a good thing, for one seemed to work faster when partially drunk.

Translations

piece or wedge that raises the heel of a shoe

• Irish: preabán sáile m

Verb

heeltap (third-person singular simple present heeltaps, present participle heeltapping, simple past and past participle heeltapped)

1. (transitive) To add a piece of leather to the heel of (a shoe, boot, etc.).

Anagrams

• leapeth, pealeth