BOOT, is likewise a kind of torture for criminals; to extort a confession, by means of a boot, stocking, or buskin of parchment; which being put on the leg moist, and brought near the fire, in shrinking squeezes the leg violently, and occasions intolerable pain.
There is also another kind of boot; consisting of four thick strong boards bound round with cords: two of these are put between the criminal's legs, and the two others placed one on the outside of one leg and the other on the other; then squeezing the legs against the boards by the cords, the criminal's bones are severely pinched, or even broken, &c.
The boot is now disused in England and Scotland; but it subsists still in some other countries.
Boot-Tree, or Boot-last, an instrument used by shoe-makers to widen the leg of a boot. It is a wooden cylinder slit into two parts, between which, when it is put into the boot, they drive by main force a wedge or quoin.